This book applies linguistic analysis to the poetry of Emeritus Professor Edwin Thumboo, a Singaporean poet and leading figure in Commonwealth literature. The work explores how the poet combines grammar and metaphor to make meaning, making the reader aware of the linguistic resources developed by Thumboo as the basis for his unique technique.The author approaches the poems from a functional linguistic perspective, investigating the multiple layers of meaning and metaphor which go i...

The Bloomsbury Companion to M. A. K. Halliday is a comprehensive and accessible reference resource to one of the world's leading and most influential linguists.Born in 1925, Halliday is the figure most responsible for the development of systemic functional linguistics (SFL). The impact of his work extends beyond linguistics, into the study of stylistics, computation linguistics, visual narrative and multimodal communication. He is considered a founder of the field of socia...

Applying Systemic Functional Linguistics: The State of the Art in China Today showcases new work from leading scholars in China, as well as offering perspectives on this work from M.A.K. Halliday and Jim Martin. The range of topics covers graphology/phonology, lexis, group and clause, clause complex, text, typology, semiotics, multimodality, stylistics, translation, and teaching.Not only will this book introduce the latest research into language and multimodal discourse be...

This book is based on a series of lectures, which begin with a look at the history of the language that we use in order to encode our knowledge, particularly our scientific knowledge, i.e., the history of scientific English. Prof. M.A.K. Halliday poses the question of how a growing child comes to master this kind of language and put it to his or her own use as a means of learning. In subsequent chapters, Halliday explores the relationship between language, education and culture, again taki...

An essential one-volume reference to contemporary systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and its applications, this handbook offers a rigorous and systematic overview of the field and its recent developments. Written by an international team of leading scholars, this volume covers the key approaches and applications, providing both a survey of current research and more practical guidance for advanced study.Fully updated, revised and restructured to take account of d...

Action Research is becoming more popular in nursing and healthcare. It is used by practitioners who want to better understand and improve the quality of their work, and by students who need to do a research project for their course. An Action Research approach enables evidence-based care and links research directly to practice, making it the ideal method for a researcher in these fields.This book introduces readers to Action Research by presenting its key concepts and backing these...

Jack has lived a long, satisfied life. He has had his fair share of adventures and adversities whereby the sum of his vast experiences has tempered his perspective just a bit. His moral compass for right and wrong have been tested but he refuses to give up on how he was raised. Remembering to always treat people with dignity and respect, and a healthy dose of country living, has always been Jack's foundation. Mix in a little humor from time to time and Jack seems to do just fine.Ja...

Language typology identifies similarities and differences among languages of the world. This textbook provides an introduction to the subject which assumes minimal prior knowledge of linguistics. It offers the broadest coverage of any introductory book, including sections on historical change, language acquisition, and language processing. Students will become familiar with the subject by working through numerous examples of crosslinguistic generalizations and diversity in syntax, morpholo...

Linguistics is a comprehensive crosslinguistic introduction to the study of language, and is ideal for students with no background in linguistics.A comprehensive introduction to the study of language, set apart by its inclusion of cross-linguistic data from over 80 different spoken and signed languagesExplores how language works by examining discourse, sentence-structure, meaning, words, and soundsIntroduces psycholinguistic and s...

In this book, Ljiljana Progovac proposes a gradualist, adaptationist approach to the evolution of syntax, subject to natural selection. She provides a specific framework for its study, combining the fields of evolutionary biology, theoretical syntax, typology, neuroscience, and genetics. The author pursues an internal reconstruction of the stages of grammar based on the syntactic theory associated with Chomskyan Minimalism and arrives at specific, testable hypotheses, which are then corrob...

Is children's language acquisition based on innate linguistic structures or built from cognitive and communicative skills? This book summarises the major theoretical debates in all of the core domains of child language acquisition research (phonology, word-learning, inflectional morphology, syntax and binding) and includes a complete introduction to the two major contrasting theoretical approaches: generativist and constructivist. For each debate, the predictions of the competing accounts ...

In this fascinating survey of everything from how sounds become speech to how names work, David Crystal answers every question you might ever have had about the nuts and bolts of language in his usual highly illuminating way. Along the way we find out about eyebrow flashes, whistling languages, how parents teach their children to speak, how politeness travels across languages and how the way we talk show not just how old we are but where we’re from and even who we want to be.