Margaret Masterman was a pioneer in the field of computational linguistics. Working in the earliest days of language processing by computer, she believed that meaning, not grammar, was the key to understanding languages, and that machines could determine the meaning of sentences. She was able, even on simple machines, to undertake sophisticated experiments in machine translation, and carried out important work on the use of semantic codings and thesauri to determine the meaning structure of texts. This volume brings together Masterman's groundbreaking papers for the first time. Through his insightful commentaries, Yorick Wilks argues that Masterman came close to developing a computational theory of language meaning based on the ideas of Wittgenstein, and shows the importance of her work in the philosophy of science and the nature of iconic languages. Of key interest in computational linguistics and artificial intelligence, it will remind scholars of Masterman's significant contribution to the field.

As a pioneer in computational linguistics, working in the earliest days of language processing by computer, Margaret Masterman believed that meaning, not grammar, was the key to understanding languages, and that machines could determine the meaning of sentences. This volume brings together Masterman's groundbreaking papers for the first time, demonstrating the importance of her work in the philosophy of science and the nature of iconic languages. This book will be of key interest to students of computational linguistics and artificial intelligence.

Cohesion in English is concerned with a relatively neglected part of the linguistic system: its resources for text construction, the range of meanings that are speciffically associated with relating what is being spoken or written to its semantic environment. A principal component of these resources is 'cohesion'. This book studies the cohesion that arises from semantic relations between sentences. Reference from one to the other, repetition of word meanings, the conjunctive force of but, so, then and the like are considered. Further, it describes a method for analysing and coding sentences, which is applied to specimen texts.

This title proposes a creative, concrete, and highly operational theoretical model that unites cohesion and coherence in Linguistics using authentic English or Chinese examples. The authors expand the scope of research by focusing on a variety of internal and external factors and apply it to a range of other disciplines.

A critical and systematic review of existing research located at the crossroads of sociology, social psychology and applied linguistics, Languages and Social Cohesion offers valuable insights for social contexts in which decision makers and researchers grapple with questions of social cohesion in the presence of linguistic diversity. Based on a thematic analysis of 285 studies from 50 countries (references available) this book emphasises the crucial role languages play in understanding social cohesion, and provides a framework of perspectives to aid exploration of these complex interlinkages. Through interpreting the literature, the authors established language repertoires as tools that facilitate social networks and access to resources. Furthermore, language norms and allegiances can subjectively shape the way groups use their language resources, which can result in social inclusion, exclusion and mediation between language groups. Education particularly is highlighted as a policy tool that implements linguistic decisions and norms, and steers status, hierarchies and distribution of languages in society. The theory-informed and accessible tools featured can be used to guide and inform further research, workshops or projects that investigate social cohesion and languages. This book is relevant for diverse and intersecting spheres of influence, such as groups, communities, institutions and authorities at local, regional, national and international levels.

The study of text cohesion and coherence has been a topic of heated discussion in Linguistics since the 1990s. Western linguists have developed two major theoretical frameworks to describe the relationship between the two concepts: one posits that cohesive devices are important means to ensure cohesion; the other argues that coherence does not rely on cohesion. Yet neither has complete explanatory power over reality; nor can they solve real-life problems. This title proposes a creative, concrete, and highly operational theoretical model that unites cohesion and coherence using authentic English or Chinese examples. The authors clarify the concepts of coherence and expand the scope of the research by focusing on a variety of internal and external factors, such as psycho-cognitive and socio-cultural factors. Moreover, the authors propose that the new theoretical paradigm can be applied to a range of other disciplines, including translation and foreign language teaching. This title has been one of the most cited works on cohesion and coherence in China. Students and scholars of discourse analysis, linguistics, and language education will find this an invaluable reference.

The contributions to this volume investigate relations of cohesion and coherence as well as instantiations of discourse phenomena and their interaction with information structure in multilingual contexts. Some contributions concentrate on procedures to analyze cohesion and coherence from a corpus-linguistic perspective. Others have a particular focus on textual cohesion in parallel corpora that include both originals and translated texts. Additionally, the papers in the volume discuss the nature of cohesion and coherence with implications for human and machine translation. The contributors are experts on discourse phenomena and textuality who address these issues from an empirical perspective. The chapters in this volume are grounded in the latest research making this book useful to both experts of discourse studies and computational linguistics, as well as advanced students with an interest in these disciplines. We hope that this volume will serve as a catalyst to other researchers and will facilitate further advances in the development of cost-effective annotation procedures, the application of statistical techniques for the analysis of linguistic phenomena and the elaboration of new methods for data interpretation in multilingual corpus linguistics and machine translation.