Languages Within Language: An evolutive approach

Hardback Published on: 31/12/2001
Price: £126
Free UK delivery on orders over £25
We can order this from the publisher
Usually dispatched within 2 weeks
Make and edit your lists in your account
No stock available in any shop.
We can order this from the publisher
Usually dispatched within 2 weeks
No stock available in any shop.

Synopsis

There is little hope of reconstructing by means of comparative or typological studies a lingua adamica essentially different from present-day languages. The distant preverbal past is however still present in live speech. Phonetic, syntactic and semantic rule transgressions, far from being products of a deficient output, are governed by a universal iconic apparatus, a sort of ‘anti-grammar’ or ‘proto-grammar’ which enables the speaker and the poet to express preconscious and subconscious mental contents that could not be conveyed by means of the grammar of any language. Secondary messages, generated by the proto-grammar are integrated into the primary grammatical message. The two messages whose structural and semantic divergence represents a chronological distance of hundreds of thousands of years, constitute a dialectic unity which characterize natural languages. The evolutive approach offers a different, perhaps better understanding of questions related to dynamic synchrony, vocal and verbal style, poetic language, language change.Chapters on: Diversity of the lexicon; Dual encoding: vocal style; Syntactic gesturing; Syntactic regressions; Prosodic expression of emotions; Poetry and vocal art; Situation and meaning; A hidden presence: verbal magic; Playing with language: joke and metaphor; Metaphor: a research instrument; Dynamics of poetic language; Semantic structure of possessive constructions; Semantic structure of punctuation marks; Why gestures?; Between acts and words; Language within language: dynamics, change and evolution.

Publisher information

  • Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Co
  • ISBN: 9789027232830
  • Number of pages: 842
  • Dimensions: 245 x 164 mm
  • Weight: 1620g
  • Languages: English

Customer Reviews