This volume explores various hitherto under-researched relationships between languages and their discourse-cultural settings. The first two sections analyze the complex interplay between lexico-grammatical organization and communicative contexts. Part I focuses on structural options in syntax, deepening the analysis of information-packaging strategies. Part II turns to lexical studies, covering such matters as human perception and emotion, the psychological understanding of 'home' and 'abroad', the development of children's emotional life and the relation between lexical choice and sexual orientation. The final chapters consider how new techniques of contrastive linguistics and pragmatics are contributing to the primary field of application for contrastive analysis, language teaching and learning. The book will be of special interest to scholars and students of linguistics, discourse analysis and cultural studies and to those entrusted with teaching European languages and cultures. The major languages covered are Akan, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish.

A cogent, freshly written synthesis of new and classic work on crosslinguistic influence, or language transfer, this book is an authoritative account of transfer in second-language learning and its consequences for language and thought. It covers transfer in both production and comprehension, and discusses the distinction between semantic and conceptual transfer, lateral transfer, and reverse transfer. The book is ideal as a text for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in bilingualism, second language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and cognitive psychology, and will also be of interest to researchers in these areas.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Augmented Cognition, AC 2022, held as part of the 23rd International Conference, HCI International 2022, which was held virtually in June/July 2022. The total of 1271 papers and 275 posters included in the HCII 2022 proceedings was carefully reviewed and selected from 5487 submissions. The AC 2022 proceedings aims to develop adaptive systems capable of extending the information management capacity of individuals through computing technologies and offers a broad range of theoretical and applied issues related to Augmented Cognition and its applications.

This is the first full study of how people refer to entities in natural discourse. It contributes to the understanding of both linguistic diversity and the cognitive underpinnings of language and it provides a framework for further research in both fields. Andrej Kibrik focuses on the way specific entities are mentioned in natural discourse, during which about every third word usually depends on referential choice. He considers reference as an overt representation of underlying cognitive processes and combines a theoretically-oriented cognitive approach with empirically-based cross-linguistic analysis. He begins by introducing the cognitive approach to discourse analysis and by examining the relationship between discourse studies and linguistic typology. He discusses reference as a linguistic phenomenon, in connection with the traditional notions of deixis, anaphora, givenness, and topicality, and describes the way his theoretical approach is centered on notions of referent activation in working memory. He argues that the speaker is responsible for the shape of discourse and that referential expressions should be understood as choices made by speakers rather than as puzzles to be solved by addressees. Kibrik examines the cross-linguistic aspects of reference and the typology of referential devices, including referring expressions per se, such as free and bound pronouns, and referential aids that help to tell apart the concurrently activated entities. This discussion is based on the data from about 200 languages from around the world. He then proposes a comprehensive model of referential choice, in which he draws on concepts from cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics, cognitive psychology, and cognitive neuroscience, and applies this to Russian and English. He also draws together his empirical analyses in order to examine what light his analysis of discourse can shed on the way information is processed in working memory. In the final part of the book Andrej Kibrik offers a wider perspective, including deixis, referential aspects of gesticulation and signed languages. This pioneering work will interest linguists and cognitive scientists interested in discourse, reference, typology, and the operations of working memory in linguistic communication.

How and why do all children learn language? Why do some have difficulties while others are early language learners? What are the consequences of early bilingualism? Is it possible to reach native-like competence in a foreign language? Although we still cannot fully answer these questions, research during the last two decades has begun to solve some pieces of the puzzle. This book proposes an interdisciplinary collection of writings from some of the best specialists across several fields in cognitive science, offering a wide sample of recent advances in the study of first language acquisition, bilingualism, second language acquisition, and disorders of oral language. It is addressed to all researchers and students interested in language acquisition, as well as to teachers, clinicians and parents, who will find therein many new findings and varied methodological approaches, as well as challenging questions that are still debated and in need of further research.

This book is an attempt to re-evaluate some basic assumptions about language, communication, and cognition in the light of the new epistemology of autopoiesis as the theory of the living. Starting with a critique of common myths about language and communication, the author goes on to argue for a new understanding of language and cognition as functional adaptive activities in a consensual domain of interactions. He shows that such understanding is, in fact, what marks a variety of theoretical and empirical frameworks in contemporary non-Cartesian cognitive science; thus, cognitive science is in the process of working out new epistemological foundations for the study of language and cognition. In Part Two, the traditional concept of grammar is reassessed from the vantage point of autopoietic epistemology, and an analysis of specific grammatical phenomena in English and Russian is undertaken, revealing common cognitive mechanisms at work in linguistic categories.

Reporting discourse has attracted rigorous analyses in linguistics, literary theory, cognitive psychology, sociology and ethnomethodology. This book provides analyses of controversial topics in reporting discourse like tense alternation, reporting styles, patterns and functions. After critically examining existing theories, Tomoko I. Sakita offers new theoretical perspectives and empirical analyses within the scope of actual language performance. Her analysis covers tenses that previous studies have neglected or have considered "ungrammatical" or "mistaken". Based on models of cognitive recollection and stream of consciousness, tense reveals cognitive, attitudinal and consciousness state markers in complex reporting processes, as well as identity, speaker psychology, and deictic relations, embedded in discourse and narrative contexts. A synthesis of discourse analysis and experiments on reporting style, structure and functions leads to formulating a new reporting discourse continuum. Reporting discourses emerge as rule-governed, goal-directed, purposeful strategic devices in communication. Sakita shows reporting discourse to be an integral whole formed by speakers' constant interpretations and choices at different stages of information processing, with close interactions among cognitive constraints, discourse organization, contextual information, and communicative purposes. She deepens our insights into the operation of language and cognition, as well as into communication systems and social dynamics, ultimately leading to a better understanding of human behaviour. This should be a useful work not only for linguists and literary specialists but also for readers with serious interest in human reporting behaviour and narrative, or in the dynamic aspects of cognitive operation.