This article describes the prosodic features of the most frequent pragmatic markers in English conversations that contribute to the management of context in interaction. Often, turn-taking has been analyzed either from a structural perspective, in which the participants are treated as subjects that pursue rules, accommodating to pre-established patterns, or from a pragmatic perspective with a focus on the intentionality of the speaker in the use of pragmatic markers. It is my contention in this article that pragmatic markers are ancillary (...) to context within the Dynamic Model of Meaning theory, and that prosody plays an essential role in adaptive management as the fourth element of context. (shrink)

This article examines the discursive construction of Scottish and British- English national identities in the printed press within the context of the planned Scottish independence referendum. Using Critical Discourse Analysis and informed by sociological and anthropological research, the study uses a Corpus Linguistics approach to analyse newspaper texts from the Scottish and British printed media to define the strategies used in the construction and disarticulation of these identities and the ideologies behind them. The results of the analysis will show that (...) the Scottish broadsheets use a staunchly Scottish rhetoric with frequent examples of nation flagging, showing the palpable struggle for power and a certain sense of inferiority. Inadvertently or otherwise, these newspapers engender a sense of separateness by employing techniques of positive in-group identification. The Scottish editions of UK broadsheets, on the contrary, hold a more Anglocentric perspective and their treatment of the referendum is more political than ideological, frequently attributing negative evaluations to the independence issue and engaging in the practice of “tartanisation”. To conclude, the UK broadsheets tend to provide a more balanced and objective point of view, thus being at the political centre of the social debate enacted by the referendum and the subsequent possible independence of Scotland. (shrink)

Bringing together research from some of the most influential scholars in linguistics today, this Handbook provides a thorough guide to how context interacts with language. Surveying the latest work from a range of theoretical perspectives, it is essential reading for researchers and advanced students across a range of linguistic subfields.

The present article proposes a taxonomy of features to describe the grammar of natural landscapes with the parameters that can account for the preferences of speakers in the description of nature. The taxonomy is the theoretical foundation designed for the Corpus of Language and Nature,1 compiled worldwide, whose aim is to describe the cognitive and emotional preferences in the observation of nature by speakers of different languages. For this purpose, we have delineated the basic visual features deemed essential to read (...) natural landscapes in order to create a network of cognitive variables in the perception of nature with its various components and features. These features of landscapes are complemented with a description of the cognitive variables that mould the individual's perception of nature and the emotions enacted after its contemplation. (shrink)