Speech does not fossilize but the interpretation of artefacts obtained from archaeological sites can be used to infer the degree of complexity of the communication system necessary to produce these artefacts and sometimes their associated behaviour. The degree of complexity of tool technology is often used as a marker for the level of cognitive ability but it is difficult to extrapolate the need of a sophisticated system of communication from tool technology alone. One reason is that the ability to manufacture complex tools can be learned from observation and imitation without explicit tutoring requiring the use of language. Intentional burials and sea faring are activities that appear to require a greater reliance on linguistic communication for the purpose of enacting rituals and solving problems.

Why write a book on phonetic transcription? After more than half a century of major advances in instrumental phonetics which have rightly taken credit for broadening and deepening our knowledge of the structure of speech, it can appear to many that symbols and transcription have had their day. What, it might be asked, can [d] ever tell us that spectrograms, palatograms and the like cannot? If traditional transcription is not to fade away or be made the amanuensis of automated forms of analysis, then a case must be made for it on the grounds that it can express something which instruments cannot. Arguments need to be put against the view that there is nothing to be gained in phonetics by listening analytically to people speaking and transcribing what we hear. Marshalling the arguments provides the opportunity not only to examine critically the aims and methods of transcription but also to think about how phonetic symbols work in relation to phonetic theory on the one hand and phonetic data on the other; to consider, that is, the manner of their semiosis. This book attempts to address these issues and to place them in the context of the historical emergence of transcriptional resources from resources for writing language, the development of phonetic theory, and their coming together to make what I refer to as proper phonetic transcription possible.

'The second edition of this authoritative encyclopedia has been extensively revised and augmented by over 100 worldwide contributors to reflect the evolving interests and concerns of scholars and practitioners in the field...The volume's final comprehensive bibliography and index invaluably supplement this work's rich contents.' - K. Rosneck, University of Wisconsin--Madison, Choice, June 2009. 'The editors are to be congratulated for once again bringing together such a distinguished group of scholars and such a wide range of material. There simply is no other single volume that offers such a panoramic view of the field or such a diverse range of contributors... As a general reference work and introduction to the field, it is without equal.' - Linguist List. "[T]he Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, edited by Mona Baker and Gabriela Saldanha, is an informative and easy-to-read encyclopedia which looks at translation studies in its full multidisciplinary character while avoiding an exclusively Eurocentric perspective." - Dimitra Anastasiou, Mach Translat

Вып. 1 : Язык и познание: Методологические проблемы и перспективы. - 364 с.

В сборник вошли полемические статьи российских и зарубежных ученых, посвященные вопросам методологии современных лингвистических исследований. Эта методология характеризуется отходом от основанной на картезианском дуализме традиционной философии познания и связанного с ней ортодоксального направления в традиционной лингвистике. В статьях затрагиваются важнейшие теоретические вопросы, имеющие принципиальное значение для исследований естественного языка на ближайшую и отдаленную перспективу.

The study of language learner characteristics, or individual differences (IDs), has a long tradition in second language studies and nobody would question that factors such as language aptitude, motivation, or learning styles are important contributors to success in mastering a foreign language. Accordingly, the existing literature on individual difference variables is extensive. Curiously, however, there are very few book-length summaries of the topic—in fact, there is only one single-authored monograph on language learning IDs, Peter Skehan’s (1989) seminal title on Individual Differences in Second Language Learning. Since the publication of that book a great deal of research has been conducted in the field to explore the language learner, and an updated overview has been due for some time. In response to this need, the last five years have seen the publication of no fewer than four anthologies on learner issues (although not all from an ID perspective), edited by Breen (2001), Cook (2002), Cornwell and Robinson (2000), and Robinson (2002). These volumes are all of high quality, with chapters written by some of the best known experts in the field. So what justifies the writing of the current book? Let me mention three reasons: • An authored book can offer certain useful features that anthologies, by definition, cannot: A unified voice and style, an integrated text, and a more even coverage of the domain without duplications or gaps. • Anthologies are, by definition, selective: They focus on key issues and often ignore smaller but nevertheless important subareas that do not warrant a whole chapter. This is certainly true in our case, as none of the four works mentioned above address, for example, ‘learner beliefs,’ or ‘learning styles,’ let alone lesser known variables such as ‘creativity’. So far such topics have been discussed primarily in journal articles and, to a lesser extent, in thematic monographs targeting only the specific ID variable in question. • In this book I would like to extend the traditional boundaries of individual differences and include some important learner variables—most notably various personality traits—that are not normally discussed in this context in the L2 literature.

Of all mankind’s manifold creations, language must take pride of place. Other inventions—the wheel, agriculture, sliced bread—may have transformed our material existence, but the advent of language is what made us human. Compared to language, all other inventions pale in significance, since everything we have ever achieved depends on language and originates from it. Without language, we could never have embarked on our ascent to unparalleled power over all other animals, and even over nature itself.

The debate is ages old: Where does language come from? Is it an artifact of our culture or written in our very DNA? In recent years, the leading linguists have seemingly settled the issue: all languages are fundamentally the same and the particular language we speak does not shape our thinking in any significant way. Guy Deutscher says they’re wrong. From Homer to Darwin, from Yale to the Amazon, and through a strange and dazzling history of the color blue, Deutscher argues that our mother tongues do indeed shape our experiences of the world. Audacious, delightful, and provocative, Through the Language Glass is destined to become a classic of intellectual discovery.

Routledge Applied Linguistics is a series of comprehensive textbooks, providing students and researchers with the support they need for advanced study in the core areas of English language and Applied Linguistics. Each book in the series guides readers through three main sections, enabling them to explore and develop major themes within the discipline. Section A, Introduction, establishes the key terms and concepts and extends readers’ techniques of analysis through practical application. Section B, Extension, brings together influential articles, sets them in context, and discusses their contribution to the field. Section C, Exploration, builds on knowledge gained in the first two sections, setting thoughtful tasks around further illustrative material. This enables readers to engage more actively with the subject matter and encourages them to develop their own research responses. Throughout the book, topics are revisited, extended, interwoven and deconstructed, with the reader’s understanding strengthened by tasks and follow-up questions. Translation: examines the theory and practice of translation from a variety of linguistic and cultural angles, including semantics, functional linguistics, corpus and cognitive linguistics, discourse analysis, gender studies and postcolonialism draws on a wide range of languages, including French, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian and Arabic explores material from a variety of sources, such as the Internet, advertisements, religious texts, literary and technical texts gathers together influential readings from the key names in the discipline, including James S. Holmes, George Steiner, Vinay and Darbelnet, Eugene Nida, Werner Koller and Ernst-August Gutt. Written by experienced teachers and researchers in the field, Translation: An Advanced Resource Book is an essential textbook for students and researchers of English language and Applied Linguistics.

This book is a work of interpretation not prophecy. In an area where there is an endless stream of technical innovations, it would be foolish in the extreme to try to predict what might or might not be the ultimate success of automated systems in dealing with problems or questions of translatability. Its aim is rather to understand in a broader sense the implications for language, culture, and society of translation’s engagement with technology. In order to do this, it takes in disciplinary perspectives from anthropology to zoology and deals with historical examples ranging from the river settlements of the Tigris and the Euphrates, to the changing fortunes of the Australian military in the contemporary world. Throughout the book, there is a deliberate avoidance of the idle partitioning of evidence, and literary translation is discussed alongside technical, commercial, and scientific translation. There is repeatedly the contention that technology is not simply an accessory, an adjunct to translation, but that it has been central to the definition of translation activity in many different societies and in many different historical periods up to and including, of course, our own.

Several scholars have stressed the limits of language in the course of researching violence or when writing about it (Appadurai 1996, Das 2007). Our language seems insufficient to describe the horrors of violence (Binford 2004). Often, words seem to be frozen, and experiences of violence thus appear as if they could only be voiced from a distant position (Das and Kleinman 2001). How can we grasp the meaning of violence? How can anthropologists document the far-reaching and long term effects of violent actions? Focusing solely on narratives of violence and the context in which they emerge, is not sufficient to understand the meaning and the effects of violence. Particularly in realms of human experience, it is obvious that verbal language represents merely one among several ways of expression like gestures, rituals or certain kinds of public manifestations. An exploration of the vast range of different modes of expression thus promises to be the more adequate way to approach, register and understand the comprehensive manifestations and long-lasting effects of violence. This is the basic consideration why we chose ‘expressions’ of violence as the title for this volume, and asked the contributors to document and to analyze the diverging forms in which violence is addressed or conveyed. All the chapters of this volume thus deal with a paradox, as they attempt to turn into text violent experiences that, as we just presumed, cannot be expressed through verbal everyday language. The chapters discuss violence that is communicated through silences, rumours, literary narrations, represented in muted bodies, in rituals or role models. In order to grasp the meaning of violence as such, the contributors applied different perspectives, methods and analytical approaches. To comprehend the unspoken and the silence, most of the researchers have chosen a haptic approach. We borrow this term from Nordstrom (2010), who has defined her approach as ‘research through the senses’. Nordstrom has described the complexity of violence, its blurriness and its routinization or almost naturalization. In a similar approach, Verrips (2007) criticized researchers’ self-imposed restriction on visual manifestation in general, and claimed that a more balanced attention should be paid to our entire bodily sensorial experience. ‘We would then focus on [the] difficulty to grasp phenomena as deeply felt emotions and desires […] as well as the irrational and the fantastic, the absurd and the surreal.’ Our heavy emphasis on the role of the mind, reason and rationality, should give way to an increased interest in the sensual and emotional dimensions that are inherent in ‘our somatic experience of reality’ (Verrips 2007: 31).