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Description:
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Language in Use creatively brings together, for the first time,
perspectives from cognitive linguistics, language acquisition, discourse
analysis, and linguistic anthropology. The physical distance between
nations and continents, and the boundaries between different theories and
subfields within linguistics have made it difficult to recognize the
possibilities of how research from each of these fields can challenge,
inform, and enrich the others. This book aims to make those boundaries more
transparent, and encourages more collaborative research.
The unifying theme is studying how language is used in context and explores
how language is shaped by the nature of human cognition and social-cultural
activity. Language in Use examines language processing and first language
learning and illuminates the insights that discourse and usage-based models
provide in issues of second language learning. Using a diverse array of
methodologies, it examines how speakers employ various discourse-level
resources to structure interaction and create meaning. Finally, it
addresses issues of language use and creation of social identity.
Unique in approach and wide-ranging in application, the contributions in
this volume place emphasis on the analysis of actual discourse and the
insights that analyses of such data bring to language learning as well as
how language shapes and reflects social identity—making it an invaluable
addition to the library of anyone interested in cutting-edge linguistics.
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