A general introduction to the area of theoretical linguistics known as cognitive linguistics, this textbook provides up-to-date coverage of all areas of the field, including recent developments within cognitive semantics (such as Primary Metaphor Theory, Conceptual Blending Theory, and Principled Polysemy), and cognitive approaches to grammar (such as Radical Construction Grammar and Embodied Construction Grammar). The authors offer clear, critical evaluations of competing formal approache...

From the barbed, childish taunt on the school playground, to the eloquent sophistry of a lawyer prising open a legal loophole in a court of law, meaning arises each time we use language to communicate with one another. How we use language - to convey ideas, make requests, ask a favour, and express anger, love or dismay - is of the utmost importance; indeed, linguistic meaning can be a matter of life and death. In The Crucible of Language, Vyvyan Evans explains what we know, and what we do,...

Language is central to our lives, the cultural tool that arguably sets us apart from other species. Some scientists have argued that language is innate, a type of unique human 'instinct' pre-programmed in us from birth. In this book, Vyvyan Evans argues that this received wisdom is, in fact, a myth. Debunking the notion of a language 'instinct', Evans demonstrates that language is related to other animal forms of communication; that languages exhibit staggering diversity; that we learn our...

Drawing from disciplines as diverse as linguistics, cognitive science, psychology, and neuroscience, The Emoji Code explores how emojis are expanding communication and not ending it.For all the handwringing about the imminent death of written language, emoji—those happy faces and hearts—is not taking us backward to the dark ages of illiteracy. Every day 41.5 billion texts are sent by one quarter of the world, using 6 million emoji. Evans argues that these ...

Since 2011, the use of emoji – deriving from the Japanese, meaning picture character – has become a global phenomenon.We send over 6 billion emoji every day and regularly send emoji-only messages, and, when Oxford Dictionaries named the ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ emoji as their ‘Word of the Year 2015’, it received an enormous amount of criticism.Whenever emoji are covered in the popular media the same burning questions come up: Can an emoji really be a word? ...

Using language and thought to fix events in time is one of the most complex computational feats that humans perform. In the first book-length taxonomy of temporal frames of reference, Vyvyan Evans provides an overview of the role of space in structuring human representations of time. Challenging the assumption that time is straightforwardly structured in terms of space, he shows that while space is important for temporal representation, time is nevertheless separate and distinguishable fro...

"A truly extraordinary SF saga of epic scope." Kirkus starred reviewFive years after the Great Language Outage, lang-laws have been repealed, but world affairs have only gotten worse. The new automation agenda has resulted in a social caste system based on IQ. Manual employment is a thing of the past, and the lowest soc-ed class, the Unskills, are forced into permanent unemployment.In a world on the brink of civil war, a deadly insomnia pandemic threatens...

"They who control language control everything."A genre-blending, dystopian Sci-Fi mystery-thriller that will make you think about language in a whole new way.Language is no longer learned, but streamed to neural implants regulated by lang-laws. Those who can't afford language streaming services are feral, living on the fringes of society. Big tech corporations control language, the world's most valuable commodity.But when a massive cyberattack cause...

Can you drink a glass of balderdash? What do you call the part of a dog's back it can't scratch? And if, serendipitously, you find yourself in Serendip, then where exactly are you?The answers to all of these questions -- and a great many more -- can be found in the pages of the Oxford English Dictionary, the definitive record of the English language. And there is no better guide to the dictionary's many wonderments than the former chief editor of the OED, John Sim...

So, you've decided to take IELTS. You've found out what band score you need to achieve in the speaking and writing parts of the test (almost certainly it's between 5 and 7.5) and you are now asking yourself a very simple, yet very important, question. 'What do I need to do to get that band score?'

What characterizes academic writing and business writing? What are the differences between the two genres? Where do they intersect? This book offers an overview of the features of both styles of writing, as well as opportunities to improve your writing skills in a wide variety of contexts.This book was written to accompany the free online course of the same name, the second of two courses offered by the College Writing Programs of the University of California, Berkeley, through edX...