John Benjamins Publishing Research Articles

Expressing Opinions in French and Australian Discourse: A Semantic and Interactional Analysis: Kerry Mullan, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam/Philadelphia (2010), 282 pp., EUR 95.67 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-9027256041

Expressing Opinions in French and Australian Discourse: A Semantic and Interactional Analysis: Kerry Mullan, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam/Philadelphia (2010), 282 pp., EUR 95.67 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-9027256041

How sequence learning creates explicit knowledge: the role of response–stimulus interval

Destrebecqz and Cleeremans (Psychon bull rev 8:343-350, 2001; Attention and implicit learning. John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam, pp 181-213, 2003) reported that increasing the response-stimulus interval (RSI) during incidental sequence learning improved participants' ability to discriminate old and new sequences in a recognition test. However, the original experimental design confounded RSI effects during training and test. I therefore repeated the experiment with an improved design in which RSI was varied systematically during the training phase and the recognition task. Participants learned a sequence of response locations either incidentally or intentionally. As a result, sequence recognition was not affected by the RSI manipulations in the group of incidental learners. With intentional learning instructions, recognition was unaffected by training RSI, but a long RSI in the test phase improved recognition performance over a short RSI. Response latencies while executing the test sequences indicated no effect of training RSI on sequence learning. However, sequence knowledge was expressed more readily when the RSI in the test phase matched the RSI in the training phase.

Book review: Anna Filipi, Toddler and Parent Interaction: The Organization of Gaze, Pointing and Vocalization. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2010

Book review: Anna Filipi, Toddler and Parent Interaction: The Organization of Gaze, Pointing and Vocalization. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2010

Miriam Meyerhoff and Naomi Nagy (eds.), Social lives in language – Sociolinguistics and multicultural speech communities: Celebrating the work of Gillian Sankoff. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2008. Pp. v, 365. Hb $158.00.

Miriam Meyerhoff and Naomi Nagy (eds.), Social lives in language – Sociolinguistics and multicultural speech communities: Celebrating the work of Gillian Sankoff. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2008. Pp. v, 365. Hb $158.00.

After an imaginary slumber: visual and verbal imagery of ‘awakening’ Africa

After an imaginary slumber: visual and verbal imagery of ‘awakening’ Africa

The Left Periphery: The Interaction of Syntax, Pragmatics, and Prosody in Czech (review)

Reviewed by: The Left Periphery: The Interaction of Syntax, Pragmatics, and Prosody in Czech Ivona Kučerová Anne Sturgeon. The Left Periphery: The interaction of syntax, pragmatics, and prosody in Czech. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2008. 143 pp. [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 129.] This monograph, based on the author's doctoral dissertation, provides a novel investigation of various types of left dislocation strategies in Czech, in particular Contrastive Left Dislocation (CLD) and two varieties of Hanging Topic Left Dislocation (HTLD). The aim is to fill a gap in the description of this phenomenon in the West Slavic languages. While left dislocation has been widely discussed in the Chomskyan generative tradition for the Romance and Germanic languages, relatively little has been written about Czech. The author provides an exhaustive description of the data and shows how the data may be analyzed within the current state-of-the-art approaches to Germanic left dislocation. Even though Czech left dislocation strategies have not been the subject of much Chomskyan generative investigation, they have not gone unnoticed in the Czech functionalist tradition of the Prague linguistic circle. One of the main virtues of the monograph, apart from its empirical contribution, is the fact that it brings the results of functionalist approaches to the attention of the Chomskyan reader. Chapter 1 opens the monograph by sketching the phenomenon and the analysis to be proposed. The structure of the left periphery in Czech, a necessary background for the proposal, is investigated in chapter 2. Sturgeon closely follows the analysis of Czech sentential structure that is proposed in Veselovská 1995. Veselovská's analysis was developed within the GB framework, and her treatment of Czech is rather conservative in the sense that Czech sentential structure does not crucially differ from the sentential structure of English. Sturgeon recasts Veselovská's result within the Minimalist Program and examines the validity of Veselovská's assumptions. Interestingly, Sturgeon disagrees with Veselovská's analysis with respect to the relative height of elements in the left periphery. While for Veselovská a significant number of dislocations related to information structure target the CP area, Sturgeon argues that there is no empirical need to posit an expanded [End Page 143] CP domain. An analysis that puts the landing site of Focus, Contrastive Topic, and Topic elements within an expanded IP will do as well. 1. The proposed structure of the left periphery (p. 20, sturgeon's (25)): Two assumptions are crucial here: (i) movement to Spec IP may be triggered by the EPP, and (ii) A-bar movement may be discourse motivated, and therefore does not need to target a feature-specific A-bar position, such as Topic Phrase or Focus Phrase, Consequently, the specifier of IP may be either an A- or an A-bar position. In showing that (1) is an appropriate analysis of Czech, Sturgeon relies on Lenertová (2001), who noticed that in Czech multiple wh-movement does not target the CP area, since clitics and adverbials may appear between the wh-elements, as witnessed by (2) (p, 26, Sturgeon's (39)). The data lend further support to the analysis of multiple wh-movement in West Slavic as proposed in Meyer 2003, 2004. [End Page 144] 2. Kde jsi (včera večer) koho (včera večer) komu where AUX2sg last night whoacc last night whodat představila? introduced 'Where did you introduce who to whom last night?' Lit: 'Where (last night) who (last night) to who introduced?' Chapter 3 investigates the syntax of left dislocation. In her analysis, Sturgeon closely follows the proposal of Grohmann (2003) for German. Sturgeon argues that Czech, like German, has three distinct left dislocation strategies: Contrastive Left Dislocation (CLD), as in (3), and two varieties of Hanging Topic Left Dislocation (HTLD), as exemplified in (4) and (5). 3. Ostatně toho draka, toho by si mohl jedině besides that dragoruacc thatacc cond3sg REFL could so only namalovat. drawinf 'Besides, that dragon, he would only be able to draw it…' (Czech National Corpus) 4. Anička? Té se nic nestalo. Aničkanom thatdat REFL nothing NEG-happened 'Anička? Nothing happened to her.' (Czech National Corpus) 5...

Selves in Two Languages: Bilinguals' Verbal Enactments of Identity in French and Portuguese. Michèle Koven. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 2007. x+315 pp.

Selves in Two Languages: Bilinguals' Verbal Enactments of Identity in French and Portuguese. Michèle Koven. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 2007. x+315 pp.

Is De T2-Uitspraak Van Vroege Vogels Beter?

Early bilingual education is increasing in popularity. lts most important added value is thought to be pronunciation (e.g. Ioup, 2008; Birdsong, 2006). This study investigates the influence of two Dutch primary school educational settings on L2 English pronunciation, investigating aspiration (a feature of the English but not the Dutch sound system) and prevoicing (a feature of only the Dutch sound system). In general,the L2 English pronunciation of the EarlyBird (experimental), the youngest learners who started learning English in the first grade, is more native-like than that of older learners in an EarlyBird Light setting, who started in the fifth grade (control). However, as expected from earlier research (Simon, 2009), in both groups the amount of prevoicing still increases over time. Possibly, the rather late development of prevoicing in LI Dutch affects the L2 English pronunciation. The influence of the LI on L2 English pronunciation is stronger for children in the control group, leading to the conclusion that the EarlyBird educational setting is promising. Birdsong, D. (2006). Age and second language acquisition: An overview. In M. Gullberg & P. Indefrey (Eds.), The congnitive neuroscience of second language acquisition (pp. 9-49). London: Blackwell. Ioup, G. (2008). Exploring the role of age in the acquisition of a second language phonology. In J.G. Hansen Edwards & M.L. Zampini (Eds.), Phonology and second language acquisition (pp. 41-62). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Simon, E. (2009). Child L2 development: A longitudinal study. The international journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 10, 582-602

Michaela Wolf and Alexandra Fukari, eds. Constructing a Sociology of Translation. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, John Benjamins Publishing Company, “Benjamins Translation Library,” 2007, 226 p.

Michaela Wolf and Alexandra Fukari, eds. Constructing a Sociology of Translation. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, John Benjamins Publishing Company, “Benjamins Translation Library,” 2007, 226 p.. Un article de la revue TTR (Censure et traduction en deçà et au-delà du monde occidental) diffusée par la plateforme Érudit.

Discourse, War and Terrorism – Edited by Adam Hodges and Chad Nilep

Discourse, War and Terrorism – Edited by Adam Hodges and Chad Nilep

Book review: EMI MORITA, Negotiation of Contingent Talk: The Japanese Interactional Particles ne and sa. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing, 2005. 243 pp. EUR115.00/ US$155.00

Book review: EMI MORITA, Negotiation of Contingent Talk: The Japanese Interactional Particles ne and sa. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing, 2005. 243 pp. EUR115.00/ US$155.00

Book Review: “Multiple Case Narrative. A Qualitative Approach to studying multiple populations” by Asher Shkedi. Studies in Narrative 7. John Benjamins Publishing Co., 2005, 210 pp.

Book Review: “Multiple Case Narrative. A Qualitative Approach to studying multiple populations” by Asher Shkedi. Studies in Narrative 7. John Benjamins Publishing Co., 2005, 210 pp.

Kitzinger’s Feminist Conversation Analysis: Critical Observations

This paper contributes to ongoing discussions on feminism and the analysis of discourse. In particular, I examine Celia Kitzinger’s [(2000), Doing feminist conversation analysis. Feminism and Psychology, 10, 163–193 and (2002) Doing feminist conversation analysis. In P. McIlvenny (Ed.), Talking gender and sexuality. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.] claims to be engaged in “feminist conversation analysis.” This paper identifies susceptibilities in her arguments at both the theoretical level and the level of data analysis. My argument is that Kitzinger fails to appreciate the fact that her enterprise is basically a formal analytic one and that as such it is both radically different from, and incommensurate with, ethnomethodology (EM) and conversation analysis (CA). Indeed her attempts to supplement feminism with EM/CA are unnecessary and counterproductive from an EM/CA position insofar as they crucially undermine its integrity.

Examining the effects of Multiple Sclerosis on speech production: Does phonetic structure matter?

The second formant (F2) is well-known to be important to intelligibility (e.g. [Delattre, P., Liberman, A., & Cooper, F. (1955). Acoustic loci and transitional cues for consonants. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 27, 769–774]) and is affected by a variety of dysarthrias [Weismer, G., & Martin, R. (1992). Acoustic and perceptual approaches to the study of intelligibility. In R. Kent (Ed.), Intelligibility in speech disorders (pp. 67–118). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company]. This study tests two related hypotheses: (1) dysarthria associated with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) has a greater effect on the ability to produce extreme F2 movement than on typical F2 movement and (2) phonetic stimuli associated with large and/or rapid F2 movement in healthy speakers precipitate larger differences between healthy and dysarthric speech than do stimuli associated with small and/or slow F2 movement. Twelve participants with MS and 16 healthy controls read aloud the Grandfather Passage. F2 slopes were calculated from the F2 tracings (i.e. change in Hz over a 20 ms lag). For each sentence, the following measures of F2 movement were calculated: F2 range (maximum F2–minimum F2), median slope, and 95%ile slope. The mean and the maximum observation for each participant were respectively used as measures of typical and extreme productions. A repeated-measures MANOVA detected significantly larger group differences in the slopes of maximum productions than for mean production. Also, group differences in F2 slope were greater in phonetic stimuli associated with the largest F2 slopes in healthy speech than in phonetic stimuli associated with more shallow slopes. No group differences in F2 range were detected. Results indicate dysarthria affects the production of extremely rapid changes in F2 and that some phonetic structures are more useful than others for detecting these impairments. It is concluded that comparison of speakers’ best-productions (e.g. maximum F2 slope) yield more useful estimates of the effects of mild to moderate dysarthria on F2 slopes than do typical productions. Learning outcomes: The reader will be able to: (1) describe two approaches to measuring typical and extreme acoustic variability that can be applied to connected speech, (2) discuss evidence that MS affects extremely rapid changes in F2.

Japanese discourse markers: Synchronic and diachronic discourse analysis

Noriko O. Onodera, Japanese discourse markers: Synchronic and diachronic discourse analysis. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2004. Pp. xiv, 253. Hb $132.00.Onodera's work is one of the first historical-pragmatic studies of Japanese, which is typologically dissimilar to Indo-European languages. After providing background information (Ch. 1 and 2), Onodera (hereafter O) presents her latest thoughts on the evolution of Japanese discourse markers (DMs), dealing with two types coming from different sources: demo type connectives (so-called adversative conjunctions), originally from clause-final connecting devices (Ch. 3 and 4), and na elements (often called sentence-final particles (SFPs)/interjections of agreement), originally from SFPs (Ch. 5 and 6), followed by the conclusion.

Contextual resources in meaning negotiations of a student pair in a web-based history project

This study examines how one student pair working face-to-face at a computer and engaged in a web-based discussion environment negotiated meanings for their activity and what contextual resources they used in this negotiation process. The aim was also to study how the students themselves interpreted the learning activity. The subjects were two secondary school students (aged 15) participating in a web-based history project. Data was collected by various means in order to validate the findings. Linell's [(1998). Approaching dialogue. Talk, interaction and contexts in dialogical perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co.] notion of contextual resources was used as an analytical tool in studying how students constructed knowledge and negotiated meanings in their activity. Because contextual resources comprise not only the concrete resources (e.g. books) but also more abstract and mediated resources (e.g. socio-cultural contexts), the students’ discursive activity was analysed to identify common features or patterns of interaction from the data. Results showed that students’ meaning negotiations was framed and mediated by students’ comprehension of (school) knowledge, which directed the way resources were used in the situation and which resources were considered legitimate to use in the school context. In addition, students’ habitual use of communication technology, which came outside the formal school activities, made up a situational frame and was manifested in the hectic communicative approach adopted in the situation. Altogether, the study demonstrated the situated and mediated nature of learning activity.

Morphology and its Demarcations. Selected Papers from the 11th Morphology Meeting, Vienna, February 2004. Ed. by W. U. DRESSLER, D. KASTOVSKY, O. E. PFEIFFER, F. RAINER. With the assistance of F. Gardani, M.A. Pöchtrager

Morphology and its Demarcations. Selected Papers from the 11th Morphology Meeting, Vienna, February 2004. Ed. by Wolfgang U. Dressler, Dieter Kastovsky, Oskar E. Pfeiffer, Franz Rainer. With the assistance of Francesco Gardani, Markus A. Pöchtrager. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2005, gr.-8°, XIV, 317S. (ASTHoLS. Series IV: Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 264.) Geb. 125 € / 150 $.

The impact of planning time on children’s task-based interactions

Recently, tasks have been advocated for their role in promoting participation in L2 interaction and the provision and use of feedback by language learners (Bygate, M., Skehan, P., Swain, M. (Eds.), 2001. Researching Pedagogical Tasks: Second Language Learning, Teaching and Testing. Pearson Education, Harlow). The relationship between various aspects of pre-task planning time and the quality of learners’ output in terms of fluency, accuracy, and complexity (Ellis, R., 2005. Planning and Task Performance in a Second Language. John Benjamins Publishing Co, Philadelphia, PA) has primarily been investigated with adults. Despite general agreement that age plays an important role in SLA, and that tasks are widely used in classrooms, little research has concerned the benefits of pre-task planning for children. The current study examines the relationship between planning and production, with children carrying out tasks as part of their regular lessons in regular ESL classrooms. Twenty-one dyads of ESL learners, 5–12 years old, performed three communicative tasks over 3 weeks, with 0 min, 2 min and 5 min of planning time. In general, planning had limited benefits when considering use of corrective feedback and linguistic accuracy and fluency. Increased complexity was associated with 5 min of planning time. In general though, there was more talk, and more constructive on-task behavior among children when given little or no planning time.

Handbook of Pragmatics: 2002 Installment (review)

Reviewed by: Handbook of pragmatics. 2002 installment by Jef Verschueren, Jan-Ala Östman, Jan Blommaert, and Chris Bulcaen Roberta D’Alessandro Handbook of pragmatics. 2002 installment. Compiled by Jef Verschueren, Jan-Ala Östman, Jan Blommaert, and Chris Bulcaen. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2003. Pp. vi, 402. ISBN 1588114104. $150 (Hb). The Handbook of pragmatics, prepared under the scientific auspices of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA), consists of two components: The manual (1995), which contains the essential background information, and the looseleaf annual installments that provide a state-of-the-art record of pragmatics with comprehensive articles on the approaches and applications of pragmatics. The Handbook [End Page 698] of pragmatics is now also an electronic product of John Benjamins Publishing Company. The 2002 installment package contains a cumulative table of contents (from 1995 to 2002), a user’s guide that replaces the 2001 version completely, and fourteen contributions to the thematic main body of the looseleaf part. In the user’s guide, the compilers briefly explain the format of the handbook. The user’s guide also contains a detailed labeled index, with a useful explanation of the abbreviations in use and an indication of the part in which the entries are to be found. In the first of the fourteen contributions, Jef Verschueren and Frank Brisard discuss ‘Adaptability’, claiming that biology and social interaction are indissolubly linked to each other. According to Verschueren and Brisard, a theory of pragmatics also needs to refer to the capacity for reflexiveness of the human brain, which provides a metapragmatic guidance for the individual’s choice-making operations. The second contribution, ‘Appraisal’, by Peter R. R. White, concerns the language of evaluation and provides a detailed descriptive outline of the key resources of evaluation and stance. ‘Émile Benveniste’, by Tine Van Hecke, is a thorough introduction to Benveniste’s life and work. Gerda Eva Lauerbach’s ‘Emphasis’ addresses traditional studies on emphasis in several fields of linguistics. She also provides an account of the strategies that speakers employ in order to achieve emphasis in discourse. The contribution by Jeanette K. Gundel and Thorstein Fretheim, ‘Information structure’, concerns the division between given and new information in a sentence and topic-focus structures. In ‘Intertextuality’, Slef Slembrouck examines in depth Julia Kristeva’s theory of text. Steven Gillis and Dorit Ravid present the current state of the art as to theories of ‘Language acquisition’. Also listed are methodologies that are relevant to the study of language acquisition. Paul Chilton’s chapter, ‘Manipulation’, is concerned with techniques of persuasion and rhetorical strategies to obtain the addressee’s agreement. According to Chilton, manipulation is not inherent to language, but it is rather a prerogative of the speakers. The next chapter is written by one of the major experts in the theory of metaphor, Miriam Taverniers. Taverniers focuses on the conception of metaphors in linguistics. She thoroughly illustrates all types of linguistic metaphors, disregarding altogether the study of metaphors as linguistic process. Lluís Payrató’s chapter, ‘Non-verbal communication’, analyzes strategies of nonverbal communication, such as paralinguistic vocal communication and gesture. Robert Binnick discusses the pragmatics of ‘Tense and aspect’. Jocelyne Vincent Marrelli’s chapter, ‘Truthfulness’, precedes the summary and commentary by Joachim Leilich on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s life and work. Last, Miriam Fried addresses the issue of ‘Word order’. Roberta D’Alessandro University of Cambridge Copyright © 2006 Linguistic Society of America

Stance in Talk: A Conversation Analysis of Mandarin Final Particles: Ruey-Jiuan Regina Wu, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 2004, xvi + 258 pp., $119, ISBN 1-588-11-453-8

Stance in Talk: A Conversation Analysis of Mandarin Final Particles: Ruey-Jiuan Regina Wu, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 2004, xvi + 258 pp., $119, ISBN 1-588-11-453-8