This book is the result of the cooperation between Cambridge Scholar Press and the Centre for Applied Linguistics of the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment of Santiago de Cuba. The present volume is a peer-reviewed selection from the papers written in English that were presented at the 9th International Symposium on Social Communication (Santiago de Cuba, January 24-28, 2005).

The symposia are held by the Santiago-based institution every two years. Since their inception in 1987, these meetings have provided an excellent opportunity for scientific exchange among scholars from all continents, through the presentation of papers, keynote speeches, and workshops focusing on the most current and recent results of linguistics and other related disciplines that are also invited to the event.

This volume includes 34 papers subdivided in eight sections: General Linguistics (8), Phonetics (5), Lexicology (3), Corpus Linguistics (2), Natural Language Processing (9), Foreign Languages (3), Mass Media (2) and Art, Ethnology and Folklore (2).

These articles provide an excellent overview of the current state of research from around the world. Scholars came from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Cuba, Spain, United States, France, Greek, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Portugal and the United Kingdom.

It is important to highlight the presence in this book of papers by some of the world’s leading researchers in linguistics, including Prof. Dr. Anton Nijholt, from Twente University, Enschede, The Netherlands; Prof. Dr. Nicoletta Calzolari, director of the prestigious Institute of Computational Linguistics of Pisa, Italy; Prof. Dr. Michael Zock, from the Scientific Research Center of France; Prof. Dr. Dieter Fensel, from the Digital Enterprise Research Institute of Leopold-Franzens University, Innsbruck, Austria; Prof Dr. Gloria Corpas Pastor from the University of Malaga, Spain; and the doctors Iñaki Alegria, Xabier Arregi and Xabier Artola, from the IXA Group of the Basque Country University.