A comprehensive overview of the development of language studies from the ancient Greeks through modern theorists, this book focuses on determining what the enduring issues in linguistics are, what concepts have changed, and why. Francis P. Dinneen, SJ, defines the basic terminology of the discipline as well as different linguistic theories, and he frequently compares underlying assumptions in contemporaneous science and linguistics.

General Linguistics traces the history of linguistics from ancient Greek works on grammar and rhetoric through the medieval roots of traditional grammar and its assumption that there is a norm for correct speech. Dinneen marks the beginning of modern linguistics with Saussure's concept of an autonomous linguistic structure independent of socially imposed norms, and he details the theoretical contributions of Sapir, Bloomfield, Hjelmslev, Chomsky, Pike, and others. Dinneen considers the relative merits of the different theories and models, evaluating their claims and shortcomings.

A thorough introduction to linguistics for newcomers to the field, this book will also be valuable to linguists, psychologists, philosophers, and historians of science for its evaluations of major theoretical concepts in light of enduring issues and problems in language studies.

Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar provides the definitive exposition of the theory of grammar originally proposed by Gerald Gazdar and developed during half a dozen years' work with his colleagues Ewan Klein, Geoffrey Pullum, and Ivan Sag. This long-awaited book contains both detailed specifications of the theory and extensive illustrations of its power to describe large parts of English grammar. Experts who wish to evaluate the theory and students learning GPSP for the first time will find this book an invaluable guide.

The initial chapters lay out the theoretical machinery of GPSP in a readily intelligible way. Combining informal discussion with precise formalization, the authors describe all major aspects of their grammatical system, including a complete theory of syntactic features, phrase structure rules, meta rules, and feature instantiation principles. The book then shows just what a GPSP analysis of English syntax can accomplish. Topics include the internal structure of phrases, unbounded dependency constructions of many varieties, and coordinate conjunction—a construction long considered the sticking point for phrase structure approaches to syntax.

The book concludes with a well developed proposal for a model theoretic semantic system to go along with GPSP syntax. Throughout, the authors maintain the highest standards of explicitness and rigor in developing and assessing their grammatical system. Their aim is to provide the best possible test of the hypothesis that syntactic description can be accomplished in a single-level system. And more generally, it is their intention to formulate a grammatical framework in which linguistic universals follow directly from the form of the system and therefore require no explicit statement. Their book sets new methodological standards for work in generative grammar while presenting a grammatical system of extraordinary scope.

"Translation is like a reverse-engineering process—whereby, say, we might take apart a clock made of metal parts in order to build a functioning replica made entirely of plastic. Our final product will not look the same as the original clock, and it would be impossible to simply copy the designs of its inner workings, because plastic and metals have very different properties. For example, we cannot make small plastic springs or very thin gears of plastic. But these changes do not matter; the only thing that matters is that our replica will tell the time correctly.”—From the Introduction

The Georgetown Guide to Arabic-English Translation is an essential step-by-step, practical manual for advanced learners of Arabic interested in how to analyze and accurately translate nonfiction Arabic texts ranging from business correspondence to textbooks.

Mustafa Mughazy, a respected Arabic linguist, presents an innovative, functional approach that de-emphasizes word-for-word translation. Based on the Optimality Theory, it favors remaining faithful to the communicative function of the source material, even if this means adding explanatory text, reconfiguring sentences, paraphrasing expressions, or omitting words.

From how to select a text for translation or maintain tense or idiom, to how to establish translation patterns, The Georgetown Guide to Arabic-English Translation is useful both as a textbook and a reference. An invaluable set of appendices offers shortcuts to translate particularly difficult language like abbreviations, collocations, and common expressions in business correspondence, while authentic annotated texts provide the reader opportunities to practice the strategies presented in the book. A must-read for advanced learners of Arabic, this is a book every scholar and graduate-level student will wish to own.

This volume, based on the forty-third annual Georgetown University Round Table, covers a variety of topics ranging from the relationship of language and philosophy; through language policy; to discourse analysis.

The papers in this volume examine strategies for language acquisition and language teaching, focusing on applications of the strategic interaction method.

The essays in this volume explore communication across cultures using an interdisciplinary approach to language teaching and learning, mediated by the growing field of educational linguistics. Topics include the use of English as a medium of wider communication and the growth of national varieties of English throughout the world. An international array of distinguished contributors includes scholars from China, Great Britain, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Nigeria, Singapore, Taiwan, Ukraine, and the United States. This collection suggests that language diversity is a unifying force in a globally interdependent world.

This volume examines linguistics, language acquisition, and language variation, emphasizing their implications for teacher education and language education. A majority of the essays consider issues in second language acquisition, dealing specifically with learners and instructors, or concentrating on the larger social and societal context in which learning and acquisition occur.

Topics highlighted include the current and often controversial debate over bilingual education, language variation, and the past, present, and future role of linguistics in language pedagogy.

Marking the return — after a two-year hiatus — of this annual collection of essays on linguistics and language education, the 1999 volume speaks to the most pressing social issues of our time. More than thirty contributors from around the world take up longstanding debates about language diversity, language standardization, and language policy. They tackle such controversial issues as the Official English movement, bilingual education, and ideological struggles over African American Vernacular English.

The 2000 Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics brought together distinguished linguists from around the globe to discuss applications of linguistics to important and intriguing real-world issues within the professions. With topics as wide-ranging as coherence in operating room communication, involvement strategies in news analysis roundtable discussions, and jury understanding of witness deception, this resulting volume of selected papers provides both experts and novices with myriad insights into the excitement of cross-disciplinary language analysis. Readers will find—in the words of one contributor—that in such cross-pollination of ideas, "there's tremendous hope, there's tremendous power and the power to transform."

GURT is nationally and internationally recognized as one of the world's star gatherings for scholars in the fields of language and linguistics. In 2001, the best from around the world in the disciplines of anthropological linguistics and discourse analysis meet to present and share the latest research on linguistic analysis and to address real-world contexts in private and public domains. The result is this newest, invaluable 2001 edition of the Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics. This volume brings together the plenary speakers only, all leaders in their fields, showcasing discourse contexts that range from medical interactions to political campaigns, from classroom discourse and educational policy to current affairs, and to the importance of everyday family conversations. The contributors expand the boundaries of discourse to include narrative theory, music and language, laughter in conversation, and the ventriloquizing of voices in dialogue.

Frederick Erickson explores the musical basis of language in an elementary school classroom; Wallace Chafe analyzes laughter in conversation. William Labov examines narratives told to South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, while Deborah Schiffrin compares multiple accounts of Holocaust narratives, and Alessandro Duranti considers competing speaker and audience interpretations during a political candidate's campaign tour. Robin Lakoff uncovers contrasting narratives shared by different cultural groups with respect to such current events as the O.J. Simpson trial. Deborah Tannen examines the integration of power and connection in family relationships, while Heidi Hamilton considers accounts that diabetic patients give their doctors. Shirley Brice Heath looks at discourse strategies used by policymakers to deny research findings, and G. Richard Tucker and Richard Donato report on a successful bilingual program.

Just as European Jews were being emancipated and ghettos in their original form—compulsory, enclosed spaces designed to segregate—were being dismantled, use of the word ghetto surged in Europe and spread around the globe. Tracing the curious path of this loaded word from its first use in sixteenth-century Venice to the present turns out to be more than an adventure in linguistics.

Few words are as ideologically charged as ghetto. Its early uses centered on two cities: Venice, where it referred to the segregation of the Jews in 1516, and Rome, where the ghetto survived until the fall of the Papal States in 1870, long after it had ceased to exist elsewhere.

Ghetto: The History of a Word offers a fascinating account of the changing nuances of this slippery term, from its coinage to the present day. It details how the ghetto emerged as an ambivalent metaphor for “premodern” Judaism in the nineteenth century and how it was later revived to refer to everything from densely populated Jewish immigrant enclaves in modern cities to the hypersegregated holding pens of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe. We see how this ever-evolving word traveled across the Atlantic Ocean, settled into New York’s Lower East Side and Chicago’s Near West Side, then came to be more closely associated with African Americans than with Jews.

Chronicling this sinuous transatlantic odyssey, Daniel B. Schwartz reveals how the history of ghettos is tied up with the struggle and argument over the meaning of a word. Paradoxically, the term ghetto came to loom larger in discourse about Jews when Jews were no longer required to live in legal ghettos. At a time when the Jewish associations have been largely eclipsed, Ghetto retrieves the history of a disturbingly resilient word.

From "abbreviation" and "abessive" to "zero morph" and "zero-derivation," this invaluable little glossary translates complicated morphology terms and phrases into clear definitions. It covers both traditional and contemporary terminology, explaining fundamental terms in a comprehensive way for the beginner and revealing theoretical assumptions behind the labels for the more advanced reader. It can be read thematically to get a view of some of the fundamental issues in morphology by following links from one entry to another.

With an introductory, nontechnical overview of morphology for the beginner and an annotated bibliography with suggestions for further reading, its many cross-references link different approaches, related terms, and alternative terms. More extensive than the glossaries that appear in the back of linguistics textbooks, this book, thoroughly up to date, is a friendly at-your-side guide for anyone interested in the form and structure of words.

This is the first full-length reference grammar of Mam, a Mayan language spoken today by over 400,000 people in the western highlands of Guatemala and the state of Chiapas, Mexico. The result of over three years of extensive fieldwork in Guatemala, A Grammar of Mam, a Mayan Language is based on the dialect of Mam spoken by 12,000 people in San Ildefonso Ixtahuacan in the department of Huehuetenango, Guatemala.

England organizes A Grammar of Mam according to two complementary principles: to analyze Mam following basically traditional levels of grammatical description and to present material in such a way that the background information necessary for understanding each topic of discussion shall have been previously provided. Accordingly, England's analysis of the sound system and morphophonemic processes of Mam is followed by a description of the characteristics of root, inflectional, and derivational morphology. Chapters on phrase structure precede two chapters on sentence-level syntax.

A Grammar of Mam is of particular interest in analyzing a Mayan language that is both syntactically and morphologically ergative and that is innovative in the direction of strengthening the ergative system. Indeed at all levels of linguistic organization Mam is innovative, and for this reason it is uniquely interesting both historically and theoretically.

Greek Language, Italian Landscape traces the transformation of language ideologies and practices of Griko, a variety of Modern Greek used in the southern Italian province of Lecce, in Apulia. Building on ethnographic and linguistic data collected in Grecìa Salentina and Greece, Manuela Pellegrino recounts the story of Griko, highlighting the effects of the interplay of language ideologies and policies promoted by the European Union, Italy, and Greece. She shows how the longstanding concern about language demise has, over time, generated social relationships and fueled moral feelings and political interests that have ultimately shaped the predicament of Griko.

Pellegrino proposes the concept of “the cultural temporality of language” to describe how locals are continually re-storying Griko by recounting its multiple pasts, converting what was once considered a “backward language” into a symbolic resource that has reentered their daily lives in multiple ways. Yet the question as to which chapter of Griko’s past best represents the language—and is best represented by it—becomes a discursive struggle for community self-understanding and representation. Griko and its cultural heritage are used to redeem the past, to contest the present, and to envision the future of this land and its people.

In Greek Media Discourse, Nikoletta Tsitsanoudis-Mallidis examines the changes in the form and symbolism of the language utilized by the media in Greece since the fall of the dictatorship in 1974, revealing linguistic reflections of important economic and political changes of the country. She argues that the language took a more grassroots approach because it served the climate of the restoration of democracy. It took on progressive implications by distancing from more formal approaches, facilitating political alliances and raising popular expectations.

Greek language took a more populist turn when private media sought opportunities within the lower and lower-middle classes. Language both influenced, and was influenced by, an embrace of politics through the “authority” it had gained via television and publishing. It also lost and regained the role of representing the campaigns of the common people. In the era of memoranda it became a sharp tool of manipulation, aiming at the coercive acceptance of harsh economic measures.

Finally, Tsitsanoudis-Mallidis demonstrates the way language provokes critical debate, with questions about how ultimately democratic are the forces that shape a discourse with such a “biased” projection as journalism, leaving unanswered the final question: How pedagogical can a public discourse be when it loses its democracy as a social good?