The digital age has exercised considerable influence not only on language use but also on research and teaching in this field. The present volume showcases some aspects of language-related investigation that reflect the interests, experiences, and challenges of theorists, practitioners, and language instructors today. Drawing on the linguistic corpus, parallel texts in different languages and a variety of approaches and methodologies, the book features three main lines of inquiry: L1 syntactic structure, L1-L2 contact and transfer, and L2 pedagogy. The use of case-studies and authentic data makes Language and Communication in the Digital Age a valuable source of insights into some linguistic peculiarities of Romanian and English, and highlights new research avenues for specialists in language and communication.

The digital age is changing our children’s lives and childhood dramatically. New technologies transform the way people interact with each other, the way stories are shared and distributed, and the way reality is presented and perceived. Parents experience that toddlers can handle tablets and apps with a level of sophistication the children’s grandparents can only envy. The question of how the ecology of the child affects the acquisition of competencies and skills has been approached from different angles in different disciplines. In linguistics, psychology and neuroscience, the central question addressed concerns the specific role of exposure to language. Two influential types of theory have been proposed. On one view the capacity to learn language is hard-wired in the human brain: linguistic input is merely a trigger for language to develop. On an alternative view, language acquisition depends on the linguistic environment of the child, and specifically on language input provided through child-adult communication and interaction. The latter view further specifies that factors in situated interaction are crucial for language learning to take place. In the fields of information technology, artificial intelligence and robotics a current theme is to create robots that develop, as children do, and to establish how embodiment and interaction support language learning in these machines. In the field of human-machine interaction, research is investigating whether using a physical robot, rather than a virtual agent or a computer-based video, has a positive effect on language development. The Research Topic will address the following issues: - What are the methodological challenges faced by research on language acquisition in the digital age? - How should traditional theories and models of language acquisition be revised to account for the multimodal and multichannel nature of language learning in the digital age? - How should existing and future technologies be developed and transformed so as to be most beneficial for child language learning and cognition? - Can new technologies be tailored to support child growth, and most importantly, can they be designed in order to enhance specifically vulnerable children’s language learning environment and opportunities? - What kind of learning mechanisms are involved? - How can artificial intelligence and robotics technologies, as robot tutors, support language development? These questions and issues can only be addressed by means of an interdisciplinary approach that aims at developing new methods of data collection and analysis in cross-sectional and longitudinal perspectives. We welcome contributions addressing these questions from an interdisciplinary perspective both theoretically and empirically.

In today’s digital age, online and mobile advertising are of growing importance, with advertising no longer bound to the traditional media industry. Although the advertising industry still has broader access to the different measures and channels, users and consumers today have more possibilities to publish, get informed or communicate – to “co-create” –, and to reach a bigger audience. There is a good chance thus that users and consumers are better informed about the objectives and persuasive tricks of the advertising industry than ever before. At the same time, advertisers can inform about products and services without the limitations of time and place faced by traditional mass media. But will there really be a time when advertisers and consumers have equal power, or does tracking users online and offline lead to a situation where advertisers have more information about the consumers than ever before? The volume discusses these questions and related issues.

This edited collection brings together contemporary research that uses corpus linguistics to carry out discourse analysis. The book takes an inclusive view of the meaning of discourse, covering different text-types or modes of language, including discourse as both social practice and as ideology or representation.

Advances in communication technologies have created an overabundance of available information and knowledge to people in contemporary society. Consequently, it has become pivotal to develop new approaches for information processing and understanding. Information and Communication Overload in the Digital Age is a comprehensive reference source for the latest scholarly material on the increased amount of information created by evolving technologies, examining creative methods for improved control of information overload. Focusing on theoretical and experimental topics, such as media consumption, media literacy, and business applications, this book is ideally designed for researchers, practitioners, academics, graduate students, and professionals seeking emerging perspectives on information and communication management.

An instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller The definitive guide to communicating and connecting in a hybrid world. Email replies that show up a week later. Video chats full of “oops sorry no you go” and “can you hear me?!” Ambiguous text-messages. Weird punctuation you can’t make heads or tails of. Is it any wonder communication takes us so much time and effort to figure out? How did we lose our innate capacity to understand each other? Humans rely on body language to connect and build trust, but with most of our communication happening from behind a screen, traditional body language signals are no longer visible -- or are they? In Digital Body Language, Erica Dhawan, a go-to thought leader on collaboration and a passionate communication junkie, combines cutting edge research with engaging storytelling to decode the new signals and cues that have replaced traditional body language across genders, generations, and culture. In real life, we lean in, uncross our arms, smile, nod and make eye contact to show we listen and care. Online, reading carefully is the new listening. Writing clearly is the new empathy. And a phone or video call is worth a thousand emails. Digital Body Language will turn your daily misunderstandings into a set of collectively understood laws that foster connection, no matter the distance. Dhawan investigates a wide array of exchanges—from large conferences and video meetings to daily emails, texts, IMs, and conference calls—and offers insights and solutions to build trust and clarity to anyone in our ever changing world.