The present study used quantitative and qualitative measures to examine Iranian applied linguists’ (mis-) conceptions of ethical issues in research. For this purpose, one hundred and twelve applied linguists completed a research ethics questionnaire constructed and validated by the researchers. In the follow-up qualitative phase, 15 applied linguists who were faculty members participated in semi-instructed interviews. Data were analyzed using exploratory factors analyses for the first phase and theme analyses for the second phase. Quantitative results showed that (...) the most important misconceptions among Iranian applied linguists lingered on working with data (data collection and data analyses). For example, removing an outlier was a prevalent act conducted by applied linguists in the present study. Teachers using their students as participants of their own research as well as how they treated those students after a study were other controversial issues. The qualitative results revealed several themes including lack of knowledge, conflict with real-world practices, a product-oriented approach to education and a publish or perish mentality as the reasons for misconceptions of ethics in applied linguistics among Iranian researchers. On general terms, there was an implicit agreement regarding the lack of training on research ethics among Iranian applied linguists. (shrink)

Starting from defining the terms “linguistics,” “applied linguistics” , and “postmodern,” I will show which different interpretations can be attributed to the compound expression “postmodern applied linguistics”: “applied linguistics today,” “applied linguistics from a plural, anti-essentialist, antiuniversalistic, etc., point of view,” “explicit” versus “implicit postmodern AL,” etc. The discussion refers to AL as a “plural whole,” but also to a few of subsdisciplines such as translation studies, intercultural communication, gender linguistics, (...) technical communication, educational linguistics, critical applied linguistics, and language policy. The paper will also discuss the role of a postmodern theory of science as a premise for theories in every scientific discipline. I will plead for a concept of plural theories that could often take more into account the complexity of “reality” than strictly monistic theories. Since AL should be the discipline that mediates between linguists and non-linguists, I will finally refer to the language awareness of lay people, which is still under the almost exclusive influence of “modern” rather than “postmodern” models of reasoning. (shrink)

The abstract found at the beginning of most journal articles has increasingly become an essential part of the article. It tends to be the first part of the article to be read and, to some extent, it `sells' the article. Acquiring the skills of writing an abstract is therefore important to novice writers to enter the discourse community of their discipline. Based on 30 abstracts from three journals, the present study aims at exploring not only the rhetorical moves of abstracts (...) in the fields of applied linguistics and educational technology, but also the linguistic realizations of moves and authorial stance in different abstract moves. The results show that there are three obligatory moves in abstracts in these two disciplines — Presenting the research, Describing the methodology, and Summarizing the results. The results also indicate that a combination of certain linguistic features such as grammatical subjects, verb tense and voice can help distinguish moves in the abstract. The findings of the study have some pedagogical implications for academic writing courses for graduate students, especially students from non-English backgrounds. (shrink)

Se presentan los resultados de una investigación cualitativa hermenéutica sobre la lingüística cognitiva y la lingüística aplicada, relacionadas con otras ciencias en un contexto específico de la comunidad científica especializada. Desde una visión integral y holística de las ciencias biomédicas y humanas, asimismo, se estudian los lenguajes técnico-científicos de la ciencia y de la tecnología para facilitar la interrelación cognitiva entre las diferentes disciplinas. Este estudio permite crear capacidades para evaluar el acervo léxico en contexto, útil para la transmisión y (...) la transformación del conocimiento en un lenguaje propio acorde a la exigencia del método científico. El objetivo consistió en indagar sobre la relación de la unidad léxica con su nexo cognitivo a una unidad terminológica de uso cotidiano en la información y en la comunicación académica de la práctica médico-legal forense. Los resultados establecen diferencia y precisan cierta comprensión de la significación de unidades léxicas ambiguas de mayor relevancia y frecuencia, utilizadas en este ámbito del conocimiento, en cuatro categorías de análisis; según las características propias de la disciplina en dialogo con otras ciencias en contexto. Se evidencia la importancia de educar durante el proceso enseñanza-aprendizaje significativo de la disciplina en contexto, desde la metalingüística del objeto de estudio dimensionado y relacionado con otros objetos de estudio, que permita el proceso cognitivo del lenguaje técnico-científico transdisciplinar, la apropiación social y la circulación del conocimiento aplicado a las prácticas médico legales integrales en relación entre la Psicofarmacología, la Psiquiatría, la Antropología y la Psicología, con las ciencias biomédicas y humanas. In this work results of a qualitive hermeneutic research about a cognitive and applied linguistic related to other sciences in an specific context of a given scientific community were presented, a technical and scientific language regarding science and technology was pointed out from an integral vision in order to facilitate cognitive relationship among different disciplines. This study also allows to create capacities in order to assess vocabulary in context, useful for the transmission and transformation of knowledge according to a scientific method. The objective was directed to know about the relationship between the lexical unit and its meaning in a given communicative context and in the academic communication of a medical - legal forensic practice. The importance of educate during the teaching learning process is also mentioned in this research and the main objective is to develop an assertive medical practice among Psychopharmacology, psychiatric, anthropology and psychology with biomedical and human sciences. (shrink)

Pseudo-clefts are the building blocks of coherent discourse progression and serve as a rhetorical toolkit to construct an authorial stance in the academic discourse. Despite an increasing interest in grammatical constructions in the academic discourse, researchers have not treated pseudo-clefts in much detail. This paper explores the features of pseudo-clefts in the corpus of academic discourse in the field of applied linguistics. Here, we take the textual and the interpersonal perspectives, focusing on the use of pseudo-clefts in terms (...) of their distribution in generic structure, discourse functions with reference to clefted constituents, and evaluative meaning. The results show that pseudo-clefts were more frequently used in “Results and Discussion” and Literature Review, performing the functions such as the specification of key terms, generalization of the literature, the description and explanation of findings, etc. They are facilitative in creating information gaps and establishing a logic-semantic expansive relationship between the clauses. The findings also suggest that the pseudo-clefts are evaluative devices and are involved in the construction of authorial identities. (shrink)

Based on applied linguistics, this study looked at the decision support system for emphasizing self-assurance in academic writing. From a generic perspective, academic writing has been considered both a process and a product. It has highlighted the planning composite processes, editing, composing, revising, and assessment, which depend upon the familiarity of someone with confidence in their capability for engagement in these activities. As a product, it has focused on the writing results through the product’s characteristics. These contain specific (...) content areas in acceptable depth and well-structured technical vocabulary. Higher education aims to support students in optimizing their potential for achieving satisfactory outcomes. For example, the assessment of grades involves academic writing, contributing to the degree course classification. Students have differences in many respects, such as expectations, background knowledge, and study and learning approaches. There were varying students’ beliefs about what academic writing is for evaluation. Modern-day motivations and theories highlight the significance of students’ confidence in their studies. The role of high confidence can support students to apply more effort toward setting challenging goals. Students may find it more difficult to succeed in higher education if they lack confidence in their academic writing abilities. A DSS has many applications in diverse areas and can play a significant role in the ranking and prioritization process. The current study has considered the DSS for prioritizing self-assurance in academic writing based on applied linguistics. Various criteria were considered for the evaluation of the research. The Super Decision software was used for the experimental process of the proposed research. The results of the study show the effectiveness of the proposed research. (shrink)

Ce numéro thématique a pour objectif de réunir un ensemble de contributions s’attachant à rendre compte de la constitution et de l’utilisation de corpus de données orales ou écrites dans le champ des pathologies du langage. Plus précisément, notre ambition est de montrer ce que les données issues de situations réelles peuvent apporter aux connaissances actuelles dans ce domaine. Nous considérons, à l’instar de (de Weck & Rodi 2005 ; de Weck & Marro 2010 ; MacLeod et al. 2011 ; (...) MacWhinney et a... (shrink)

Linguistic expressions of interest instantiated by interesting, intriguing, and fascinating that signal the authorial stance are not uncommon in applied linguistics research articles. Nevertheless, they have received little scholarly attention. This paper, taking a cognitive semantic approach, reports on a study that sought to examine how linguistically expressed interest in applied linguistics research articles is leveraged by researchers’ geo-academic location. Drawing on a semantic frame generated for interest markers in academic writing, this study focused on the (...) incidence of the various elements of the Interest frame in the discipline of applied linguistics based on a mixed-methods approach. The corpus-based quantitative analyses found that academic writers’ geo-academic location was a robust predictor of authors’ overall use of interest markers and some frame elements associated with the Interest frame. Triangulation with the interview data obtained from disciplinary specialists revealed that the observed differences could be attributable to the hierarchical academia featuring periphery-based scholars’ unequal access to the knowledge production market and under-representation. (shrink)

Meaning lies at the very heart of the development of language. Therefore, it is not surprising that the linguists have long been fascinated by the study of meaning, from the early days of the discipline to the present. Over time, the approach to meaning has evolved, shifting from structuralist analyses of linguistic signs to a focus on the combinatory potential of grammatical structures. Currently, the dominant cognitive-semantics approach examines meaning in relation to concepts and the human brain's abilities. One of (...) the most intriguing questions throughout the history of semantics has been the one that deals with the relationship between an individual and the linguistic community within the framework of the wider sign-meaning relation. This essential, but insufficiently explored relationship was the central topic of the 33rd International Conference of the Croatian Applied Linguistics Society. (shrink)

Notwithstanding the existence of previous investigations into how research results are presented in different academic disciplines, fewer studies have looked into how authors pave the way for their results, the interdisciplinary differences in ‘result pavements’, and the interconnections between their communicative functions and linguistic choices. Using the techniques of genre analysis, I have analyzed two corpora of research reports in applied linguistics and education in order to identify the possible ways in which experienced writers schematically pave the way (...) for their findings. Using evidence based on authentic research articles, this study demonstrates how writers set the stage for their research results by demonstrating their control of the structure and flow of result-related information, connecting past research with a current finding while furnishing pertinent background elements that lead the readership progressively to specific findings, regenerating readers’ interest in their initial research purposes, and deploying locatives to embed results in a ‘space-saving strategy’ aimed at presenting an abridged Results section. I have also analyzed interdisciplinary differences in the frequencies of these rhetorical steps and the range of intricate linguistic mechanisms employed by authors as communicative resources in each step to establish a smooth rhetorical transition that sets the stage for their research results. (shrink)

This book is the first comprehensive and systematic introduction to the linguistics of humor, exploring not only theoretical linguistic analyses, but also topics from applied linguistics. It will be a valuable resource for students from advanced undergraduate level upwards, particularly those coming to linguistics from related disciplines.

A novel theoretical framework for an embodied, non-representational approach to language that extends and deepens enactive theory, bridging the gap between sensorimotor skills and language. -/- Linguistic Bodies offers a fully embodied and fully social treatment of human language without positing mental representations. The authors present the first coherent, overarching theory that connects dynamical explanations of action and perception with language. Arguing from the assumption of a deep continuity between life and mind, they show that this continuity extends to language. (...) Expanding and deepening enactive theory, they offer a constitutive account of language and the co-emergent phenomena of personhood, reflexivity, social normativity, and ideality. Language, they argue, is not something we add to a range of existing cognitive capacities but a new way of being embodied. Each of us is a linguistic body in a community of other linguistic bodies. The book describes three distinct yet entangled kinds of human embodiment, organic, sensorimotor, and intersubjective; it traces the emergence of linguistic sensitivities and introduces the novel concept of linguistic bodies; and it explores the implications of living as linguistic bodies in perpetual becoming, applying the concept of linguistic bodies to questions of language acquisition, parenting, autism, grammar, symbol, narrative, and gesture, and to such ethical concerns as microaggression, institutional speech, and pedagogy. (shrink)

This volume focuses on the role language plays at all levels of the argumentation process. It explores the effects that specific linguistic choices may have in the production and the reception of arguments and in doing so, it moves beyond the first, necessary, descriptive stance provided by current literature on the topic. Each chapter provides an original take illuminating one or more of the following three issues: the range of linguistic resources language users draw on as they argue; how cognitive (...) processes of meaning construction may influence argumentative practices; and which discursive devices can be used to fulfil a number of argumentative goals. The volume includes theoretical and empirical or applied stances, providing the reader both with state-of-the-art reflections on the relationship between argumentation and language, and with concrete examples of how this relationship plays out in naturally occurring argumentative practices, such as classroom interaction, and political, parliamentary or journalistic discourse. This is a very original, timely and welcome contribution to the study of argumentation conducted with the tools of the language sciences. The collection of papers relevantly tackles key linguistic, discursive and cognitive aspects of argumentative practices whose treatment is underrepresented in mainstream argumentation studies by offering new and exciting linguistically-grounded theoretical accounts. As such, the volume testifies both to the vigour of the linguistic current within the discipline and to the high standards of scholarly commitment and quality that the younger generation is pushing forward. Without question, this book marks an important milestone in the relationships between linguistics and argumentation theory. Christian Plantin, Professor Emeritus. (shrink)

This volume focuses on the role language plays at all levels of the argumentation process. It explores the effects that specific linguistic choices may have in the production and the reception of arguments and in doing so, it moves beyond the first, necessary, descriptive stance provided by current literature on the topic. Each chapter provides an original take illuminating one or more of the following three issues: the range of linguistic resources language users draw on as they argue; how cognitive (...) processes of meaning construction may influence argumentative practices; and which discursive devices can be used to fulfil a number of argumentative goals. The volume includes theoretical and empirical or applied stances, providing the reader both with state-of-the-art reflections on the relationship between argumentation and language, and with concrete examples of how this relationship plays out in naturally occurring argumentative practices, such as classroom interaction, and political, parliamentary or journalistic discourse. This is a very original, timely and welcome contribution to the study of argumentation conducted with the tools of the language sciences. The collection of papers relevantly tackles key linguistic, discursive and cognitive aspects of argumentative practices whose treatment is underrepresented in mainstream argumentation studies by offering new and exciting linguistically-grounded theoretical accounts. As such, the volume testifies both to the vigour of the linguistic current within the discipline and to the high standards of scholarly commitment and quality that the younger generation is pushing forward. Without question, this book marks an important milestone in the relationships between linguistics and argumentation theory. Christian Plantin, Professor Emeritus. (shrink)

This book is a major attempt to reconcile the empirical basis of linguistic science with the a priori nature of philosophical reasoning. Its purpose is to show how the methods and findings of linguistic science, especially of transformational grammar, can be used to cast light upon central problems of analytic philosophy. After dealing with recent objections to the use of linguistic techniques in philosophy, the author shows, with great force and clarity, how these techniques can be applied to such (...) problems as the analysis of singular terms, the concepts of fact, event, and causality, and the meaning of the word "good.". (shrink)

Transdisciplinary analogies and metaphors are potential useful tools for thinking and creativity. The exploration of other conceptual philosophies and fields can be rewarding and can contribute to produce new useful ideas to be applied on different problems and parts of reality. The development of the so-called 'sustainability' approach allows us to explore the possibility of translate and adapt some of its main ideas to the organisation of human language diversity. The concept of 'sustainability' clearly comes from the tradition of (...) thinking that criticises the perspective of economic development that overlooks almost totally the natural environment -the precise context where this development takes place -and which thus leads it to a final end devoid of resources and clearly harmful for the life of human beings. Against this economicist view, which is blind to its very important side effects, some academic and activist enclaves have proposed the perspective of 'sustainable development' or 'lasting development'. In other words, they have theorised, constructed, and begun to practice an economic and urbanistic development respectful of, integrated into, and in keeping with the dynamics of nature. Such perspective provides a way of improving the material aspects of human life while at the same time not damaging other environmental aspects still more necessary and fundamental for the quality —and even for the simple possibility- of human existence. In fact, the view is a synthesis of possible opposed patterns. It does not renounce material and economic improvement, but nor does it exclude a fully healthy environment that is appropriate for the continuation of the species. If we now try to transfer and to apply this way of thinking to the linguodiversity reality, are there useful analogies and metaphors to be made? We believe there are, and ones that can be used to good advantage, and linked, moreover, to the traditions of thought that have always been present but perhaps even more so these last years with the drive to develop the thinking we are calling ‘eco-linguistic’. From the outset, we would underscore the will to connect apparent ‘opposites’ in an integrative conceptualisation, such as the very syntagm ‘sustainable development’. On the sociolinguistic plane, our debate should probably be about our ‘opposites’, which could be on the one hand the expansion of the dominant languages and, on the other hand, the maintenance and development of human linguistic diversity. (shrink)

The Homeric epics are among the greatest masterpieces of literature, but when they were produced is not known with certainty. Here we apply evolutionary-linguistic phylogenetic statistical methods to differences in Homeric, Modern Greek and ancient Hittite vocabulary items to estimate a date of approximately 710–760 BCE for these great works. Our analysis compared a common set of vocabulary items among the three pairs of languages, recording for each item whether the words in the two languages were cognate – derived from (...) a shared ancestral word – or not. We then used a likelihood-based Markov chain Monte Carlo procedure to estimate the most probable times in years separating these languages given the percentage of words they shared, combined with knowledge of the rates at which different words change. Our date for the epics is in close agreement with historians' and classicists' beliefs derived from historical and archaeological sources. (shrink)

Linguistic equity through an interpreter is not merely a fundamental human right but also an integral part of procedural justice. As codified in the professional code of conduct, interpreters should faithfully interpret everything that has been said in the exact same manner as the original speakers. Much has been researched about the content. Little has been known about the interpretations of the manner. Drawing on one hundred questionnaire responses, this article examines the interpreters’ awareness of the manner of speech in (...) Australian virtual courts and remote interpreting settings. The results suggest a general lack of understanding of the manner of speech, as reflected by interpreters’ inadequate knowledge of definitions and specific types of manner-related features. Furthermore, the insufficient understanding of the manner of speech impacts the interpreters’ perceptions of the manner of speech in the original utterances, and their views of the faithful reproduction of the se feature in courtroom discursive practices. The qualitative and quantitative analyses of written responses provided by professional interpreters provide insights into the practical aspects of reproducing the manner of speech in court. (shrink)

This article explores the link between CEOs’ language and hubristic leadership. It is based on the precepts that leaders’ linguistic utterances provide insights into their personality and behaviours; hubris is associated with unethical and potentially destructive leadership behaviours; if it is possible to identify linguistic markers of CEO hubris then these could serve as early warnings sign and help to mitigate the associated risks. Using computational linguistics, we analysed spoken utterances from a sample of hubristic CEOs and compared them (...) with non-hubristic CEOs. We found that hubristic CEOs’ linguistic utterances show systematic and consistent differences from the linguistic utterances of non-hubristic CEOs. Demonstrating how hubristic leadership manifests in CEO language contributes to wider research regarding the diagnosis and prevention of the unethical and potentially destructive effects of hubristic leadership. This research contributes to the wider study of hubris and unethical leadership by applying a novel method for identifying linguistic markers and offers a way of militating against the risk of unethical and destructive CEO behaviours induced or aggravated by hubristic leadership. (shrink)

This article recognizes that linguistic prejudice (with its associated cultural biases) is a reality in any multilingual country, including South Africa. Prejudice is inherently human and the article suggests that it can be both positive and negative. In the case of the Senzo Meyiwa murder trial the article suggests that the linguistic prejudice experienced by witnesses and legal practitioners was largely negative. Even though the South African Constitution suggests an empowering multilingual environment where there are now twelve official languages, in (...) contrast to this, the article takes as a point of departure the monolingual language of record policy that has been in place in the South African legal system since 2017. This is contrary to the constitutional imperatives. It is argued that this policy negatively impacts witnesses and legal practitioners and that the Meyiwa trial is a case in point. It is found that in this trial there is linguistic prejudice (practiced by the presiding judge) where there are linguistic or cultural voids related to communicative inequality and where the speaker does not have sufficient English vocabulary to proceed. It is concluded that the interpretation process also has its challenges and that ideally the use of African languages as languages of record in courts could only aid the delivery of social justice and the implementation of language rights in a multilingual and multicultural country such as South Africa. (shrink)

B a c k g r o u n d. The article is devoted to the analysis of the key directions of the study of the possible influence of the specifics of Chinese language culture on the content and nature of intellectual discourse, which is recognized as philosophical. Logic and ontology are the key areas of analysis of the possible influence of linguistic determinants on the intellectual discourse of China. Three main topics that attract the attention of researchers are the (...) structure of judgment, the semantics of lexical units, and the specificity of the pragmatics of the Chinese language. M e t h o d s. The author applied general scientific methods of analysis, synthesis, comparison and description of the works of researchers of Chinese philosophy, which justify and argue the fruitfulness of studying the peculiarities of Chinese language to explain the reasons of the fundamental difference between the problems actualized in the history of Chinese philosophy and those that formed the basis of the development of the history of philosophy in the Western world. R e s u l t s. It is generally accepted that for the worldview of representatives of Chinese culture, the world is a structural whole, consisting of elements that continuously interact in the dynamics of changes and transformations, we find a reflection of this feature in the semantics of the corresponding symbolic system. Polysemy in the Chinese language mostly reveals a complex and multi-layered "web" of associative and correlative connections between meanings, which in fact cannot be argued outside the context of the relevant cultural tradition indicating common features or similarities of the signified. The doubt about the typicality of understanding the denotations as fixed and atomized for the Chinese language culture is reasonable, even in those cases when it comes to the designation of empirically accessible objectivity. The main specific features of polysemy in the Chinese language are the complete heterogeneity of what is signified, and the lack of transparent grounds for identifying the genus-species subordination of the scope of general concepts. This can also serve as an explanation for the fact that we do not find a completely obvious and nondisputable analogue of the problem of universals of the Western model in the history of Chinese philosophy. C o n c l u s i o n s. Based on the peculiarities of the Chinese language culture, we can recognize as a reasonable a statement that the seemingly natural understanding of the essence – the subject, as something that remains the same (at least for a certain time), but it undergoes some changes through its manifestations – a predicate (properties and actions). It is not as necessary and axiomatic for Chinese thinkers as, for example, for ancient Greek philosophers. In addition, we can recognize the fact that the verb "to exist" does not fulfill the role of a necessary copula in judgments in the Chinese language, as a probable reason for the lack of fundamental problematization of the concept of "being" in the Chinese history of philosophy. In general, the context of the use of a certain word-sign in the Chinese language plays a determining role. The actualization of one or another meaning in an expression is formed not only by its integration into a certain text, but also by its purpose in accordance with the specific practice of application. Therefore, this can serve as an explanation for the absence of an original and axiomatic interpretation of truth as absolute, that is, unchanging and non-relative in the history of Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

Linguists take the intuitive judgments of speakers to be good evidence for a grammar. Why? The Chomskian answer is that they are derived by a rational process from a representation of linguistic rules in the language faculty. The paper takes a different view. It argues for a naturalistic and non-Cartesian view of intuitions in general. They are empirical central-processor responses to phenomena differing from other such responses only in being immediate and fairly unreflective. Applying this to linguistic intuitions yields an (...) explanation of their evidential role without any appeal to the representation of rules. Introduction The evidence for linguistic theories A tension in the linguists' view of intuitions Intuitions in general Linguistic intuitions Comparison of the modest explanation with the standard Cartesian explanation A nonstandard Cartesian explanation of the role of intuitions? Must linguistics explain intuitions? Conclusion. (shrink)

J.L. Austin is regarded as having an especially acute ear for fine distinctions of meaning overlooked by other philosophers. Austin employs an informal experimental approach to gathering evidence in support of these fine distinctions in meaning, an approach that has become a standard technique for investigating meaning in both philosophy and linguistics. In this paper, we subject Austin's methods to formal experimental investigation. His methods produce mixed results: We find support for his most famous distinction, drawn on the basis (...) of his `donkey stories', that `mistake' and `accident' apply to different cases, but not for some of his other attempts to distinguish the meaning of philosophically significant terms (such as `intentionally' and `deliberately'). We critically examine the methodology of informal experiments employed in ordinary language philosophy and much of contemporary philosophy of language and linguistics, and discuss the role that experimenter bias can play in influencing judgments about informal and formal linguistic experiments. (shrink)

This paper reports the first case in which a linguist served as an expert witness in Hong Kong, a former British colony that has operated as a special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since 1997. The dispute was on the meaning of the political slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times”, which was widely adopted during the 2019–2020 protests. The keywords “liberate” and “revolution” are smoking gun evidence for the prosecution in a large cluster of (...) cases that involve sedition law and national security offences. Section I of the paper provides background information about a case the author was involved in, which was concerned with whether the slogan was seditious. Section II describes the analysis conducted, which concludes that the slogan as a whole refers to a need to rectify a problem and to return to the original, a more desirable state of affairs for Hong Kong, without specifying what problem there is and what the desirable state of affairs looks like. Section III highlights some critical issues in the analysis, discussing challenges faced and ethical questions for the expert witness. Section IV is a postscript that briefly describes the outcome of the case. (shrink)

Resumen En el texto se expone un proceso de modelación basado en dos consideraciones (Sec. 2): que los modelos son autónomos y que sus metas directas son al menos tres: estar bien construidos, adecuarse al mundo empírico y ser capaces de realizar tareas subrogatorias. Para ello, se esbozan varios ingredientes fundamentales de la tarea modeladora en la lingüística basada en evidencias, así como los de un marco formal elegido para representar aquellos. La tercera sección está dedicada a aplicar el presente (...) análisis al caso de las redes complejas con el fin de que conceptos clave como la validez, la fiabilidad y la replicabilidad de la modelación, así como el concepto de diseño experimental en RC, se puedan observar desde un prisma representacional. La sección cuarta refleja las capacidades aplicativas de (RC), especialmente en el caso del aprendizaje del lenguaje en casos atípicos y a menudo socialmente marginados. A modo de cierre, la conclusión resume la puesta en práctica de la herramienta RC. Abstract A modeling process is initially outlined based on two considerations (Sec. 2), namely that models themselves are autonomous and that their direct goals are at least threefold: to be well constructed, to fit the empirical world, and to be able to perform subrogative tasks. This section outlines the fundamental elements of the modeling task in evidence-based linguistics, as well as those of a formal framework chosen to represent the former. The third section is devoted to applying the present theoretical analysis to the case of complex networks (CN), so that key concepts such as validity, reliability and replicability of modeling, as well as the concept of experimental design in complex networks, can be viewed from a representational perspective. The fourth section reflects the application capabilities of CN, especially in the case of language learning in atypical and often socially marginalized cases. Finally, the conclusion summarizes the implementation of the CN-tool. (shrink)

The core question behind this Frontiers research topic is whether explaining linguistic phenomena requires appeal to properties of human cognition that are specialized to language. We argue here that investigating this issue requires taking linguistic research results seriously, and evaluating these for domain-specificity. We present a particular empirical phenomenon, bound variable interpretations of pronouns dependent on a quantifier phrase, and argue for a particular theory of this empirical domain that is couched at a level of theoretical depth which allows its (...) principles to be evaluated for domain-specialization. We argue that the relevant principles are specialized when they apply in the domain of language, even if analogs of them are plausibly at work elsewhere in cognition or the natural world more generally. So certain principles may be specialized to language, though not, ultimately, unique to it. Such specialization is underpinned by ultimately biological factors, hence part of UG. (shrink)

Saul Kripke’s paradoxical argument in Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (1982) has generated an extravagant number of responses. A major debate prompted by this book has focused on the plausibility and role of the supposed normative character of meaning; the argument itself is often taken to rely on the assumption that meaning is irreducibly normative. Following Boghossian (1989), the normativity of meaning has been understood as closely tied to the existence of semantic correctness conditions. After a brief introduction to (...) the background of the debate, this work will focus on whether the normativity of meaning may be better understood as stemming from a different type of correctness, namely linguistic correctness. Linguistic correctness differs from semantic correctness insofar as it is related to conventional, and not truth-functional, meaning. I will begin by clarifying some of the features of linguistic correctness. First, I will outline some reasons why the distinction between linguistic and semantic correctness should be maintained. Then, I will anticipate a possible criticism and argue that linguistic correctness does not belong to the domain of pragmatics, as it is relevant to our understanding of conventional meaning. Finally, I will try to show that linguistic “oughts” are constitutive of meaning. Having established these basic features of linguistic correctness, I will investigate whether the fact that it is constitutive of meaning can vindicate the idea that meaning is robustly, irreducibly normative. By applying arguments from the realm of moral philosophy – within which, too, there have been attempts to show that constitutive facts can give rise to categorical moral norms – I will argue that linguistic correctness cannot give rise to categorical semantic norms. Linguistic correctness may be, nevertheless, a useful tool for explaining some of our intuitions about meaning. (shrink)

This article probes the usefulness of selected theories from Cognitive Linguistics in the context of statutory interpretation. The presumption of legal language is a well-established rule of statutory construction in Polish legal practice that comes from the internationally recognised theory by Jerzy Wróblewski. It rests on a controversial assumption that there are different levels of generality in legal language (i.e. the language of statutes) and a single term may be given different meanings depending on the level of generality that (...) is referred to. The authors use the notion of basic level categorisation from the cognitive theory of prototypes to explain this mechanism. Legal concepts, not unlike ordinary concepts, form hierarchical taxonomies. A single term may denote concepts that are situated at different levels in different conceptual taxonomies. In the absence of special circumstances, a legal term should be given the meaning that resides at a higher level of categorisation in the respective legal taxonomy. This way, the presumption of legal language is found to be justified on both linguistic and psychological grounds. (shrink)

In this paper we focus on the difficulty in judging what is called covert hate speech. We emphasize the need for a multidimensional framework when analysing covert hate speech in situ, and the need to consider the multifaceted dimension of such speech act to assess its performativity. To explain such need, we apply the test of the Rabat Plan of Action and adopt a pragmatic perspective to analyse a specific covert hate speech act, considering such speech act as both an (...) expressive and potentially performative act. We focus on the prosecution of hate speech against a woman holding a poster during an anti-safe pass demonstration. Her poster inferred a link between conspiracy theory, the government strategy addressing the Covid pandemic and many other collectives, primarily the Jewish community. Our analysis of the sign adopts a radically context-dependent methodology combining a pragmatic approach and the Rabat Plan of Action test. We then contrast our analysis with the legal and media perspective on the issue. We conclude by suggesting the benefit of integrating pragmatic analysis with application of normative set of rules such as the Rabat Plan of Action test, even though the fluidity of meaning always poses a challenge to any authority tasked with judging such communicative events. (shrink)

In this essay, I develop a critique of the linguistic territoriality principle, which states that, for reasons related to the value of language identity, language groups should be territorially accommodated. While I acknowledge the desirability of implementing a linguistic territoriality principle in some specific cases, I claim that this principle is in general inappropriate for the 'post-Westphalian' linguistic world in which we live. I identify, analyze and reject two distinct justifications for the linguistic territoriality principle: the Linguistic Context justification and (...) the Language Survival justification. Finally, I argue for different means of giving political recognition to the fact that most people value their language as an importance source of identity. This alternative theory sets out to officially recognize multiple languages in a given territory. (shrink)