Author: Yi'an Wu, Beijing Foreign Studies University
Hardback: ISBN: 1588115453 Pages: xviii, 236 pp. Price: U.S. $ 119.00
Hardback: ISBN: 9027253692 Pages: xviii, 236 pp. Price: Europe EURO 99.00
Abstract:
As a subject of universal appeal, spatial demonstratives have been studied
extensively from a variety of disciplines. What marks the present study as
distinct is that it is an English-Chinese comparative study set in a
cognitive-linguistic framework and that the methodology features a parallel
corpora-based, discourse analysis approach. The framework illuminates the
nature of the demonstratives' basic and extended meaning and use, the
connections between them, and the mechanisms that govern and constrain
their trends of extension. The corpora place the English and Chinese
demonstratives in comparable discourse contexts and processes, providing an
"ecological" environment for the observation of how their behavior fits
into the respective structural and discourse systems of the two languages.
The study also illuminates important issues such as the subjectivity of
language, language as a representational system and a vehicle of
communication, the interface between form and function, and the role of
context in discourse comprehension.
Table of contents
Preface ix
Introduction xi
Acknowledgements xiii
List of tables xv
The figure xvi
Conventions and abbreviations xvii
1. Introduction 1
2. The nature of the spatial demonstratives 27
3. Spatial demonstratives in real space 59
4. Spatial demonstratives in displaced contexts: Similar trends of
extension 77
5. Spatial demonstratives in displaced contexts: Strutural constraints on
the similar trends of extension 141
Concluding remarks 201
Notes 205
References 211
Appendix 225
Index 229
Linguistic Field(s): Cognitive Science
Discourse Analysis
Pragmatics
Text/Corpus Linguistics
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