Joan Bybee (2001). Phonology and language use. (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 94.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xviii+238.

Phonology ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 459-463
Author(s):  
Janet Pierrehumbert

The functionalist viewpoint in linguistics can take different forms. A caricature of functionalist thinking is the notion that the structure of language is optimised, or nearly so, for its function as a means of human communication. This notion has met with widespread scepticism because of its lack of predictiveness in the face of typological variation. Either it leads to the prediction that all languages are en route to some single ‘Utopian’ (even if they have not quite achieved it) or it leads one to posit so many contradictory functional goods that the nature of possible languages is not effectively restricted. A second, and far more sophisticated, understanding of functionalism is the claim that there are regular relations between the way language is represented in the mind and the way that it is processed during speech production and perception. These relations arise because language is acquired from experiences of use, and because even in adults patterns of use affect cognitive representations. The effects of individual instances of language use are local, incremental and context-dependent. Language use and competence in a language are thus two aspects of a single system. Multiple system configurations are possible for the same reason that multiple ecosystems are possible; like the products of biological evolution, human languages are merely good enough, and not globally or absolutely optimised. This understanding of linguistic functionalism has proved fruitful for at least two decades and is now coming into its own. Its rise constitutes part of the rise of scientific research on complex systems and emergent structures generally, in areas ranging from geophysics and granular media to population biology.

Author(s):  
Albert R. Jonsen

The problem that I will discuss in this essay is marvellously illustrated in the title given to me by the editors. The word “interface” is itself part of the jargon of technology, the technospeak needed by those who develop, use, and discuss functions, things, and relationships that had not existed previously in the human world. They must make up new words to describe new realities (and, unfortunately, allow new and ugly words to obscure old ones). An “interface” presumably describes the way in which one electronic system contacts another so that the first energizes the second. In the old world of human experience, an “interface” is impossible. The face of one human being is visible to another; two faces, smiling or frowning at each other, communicate. The mind behind one face can interpret the movements of another. Never does one human face interpenetrate or merge with another.


Author(s):  
Gregory S. Cooper

It is no secret that the Internet has transforemd the way we communicate with each other in the modern world.  No longer "a unique and wholly new medium of worldwide human communication,"2 the Internet has seen a dramatic increase in the number of users across the glove, from about 40 million at a time of trial in Reno v. ACLU,3 to more than 1.1 billion today.4  As is becoming ever more clear as the technology contrinues to develpo, in merely a decade, this "explosion" of the Internet has led to a host of legal complications, challenging some of our most fundamental legal assumptions and doctrines.  Basic notions of jurisdiction and enforcement are turned on their head, as "content on the Internet does not exist in one particular place; rather, it exists in several places at once."5  But these complications are not just a matter for scholars, lawyers, and judges.  Underlying this legal chaso is a cultural battleground, as different nations find themselves confronted with the question of how to preserve national values in the face of a medium that is quite adept at transcending territorial borders.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-38
Author(s):  
David Singleton

There seems to be a desire abroad in some areas of our field to abandon all talk of bounds between language-varieties in the mind. The response offered here to such a position is that language knowledge in the mind is all its aspects, in fact, highly differentiated, and that this differentiation broadly follows the lines recognized by the traditional conception which draws (always, of course, crossable) lines between languages. One powerful set of evidence in favour of this latter claim is that offered by phenomena observable in everyday bilingual and multilingual language use and interaction.  Such evidence bespeaks a necessary capacity on the part of multilinguals to keep their languages apart when using them, and an adeptness – even at a very early age – at making decisions as to which language to speak to whom.  The article explores such phenomena, which are heavy with consequences for the unboundedness view of languages. Another dimension of bilingual/multilingual experience which bespeaks boundedness is the way in which different languages connect to different identities or aspects of identity, which is also discussed in the article.


Author(s):  
Ronald Hoinski ◽  
Ronald Polansky

David Hoinski and Ronald Polansky’s “The Modern Aristotle: Michael Polanyi’s Search for Truth against Nihilism” shows how the general tendencies of contemporary philosophy of science disclose a return to the Aristotelian emphasis on both the formation of dispositions to know and the role of the mind in theoretical science. Focusing on a comparison of Michael Polanyi and Aristotle, Hoinski and Polansky investigate to what degree Aristotelian thought retains its purchase on reality in the face of the changes wrought by modern science. Polanyi’s approach relies on several Aristotelian assumptions, including the naturalness of the human desire to know, the institutional and personal basis for the accumulation of knowledge, and the endorsement of realism against objectivism. Hoinski and Polansky emphasize the promise of Polanyi’s neo-Aristotelian framework, which argues that science is won through reflection on reality.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muh. Hanif

The paper discusses the introduction of hermeneutics, Gadamer's biography, Gadamer's hermeneutics and Quranic exegesis, and examples of interpreters using the Gadamer hermeneutics model. hermeneutics tried to grasp the meaning of the Quranic text. Meaning comes from the German "Meinen" which means "to be in the mind or right." Meanings are produced on the basis   of a fusion of horizon or a mixture of the author's horizon of thought, reader, and text.  interpretation is a productive act involving the subjectivity of the interpreter and is  influenced by the historical reality and the presupposition of the interpreter. Gadamer hermeneutics is widely applied in the way of interpretation of the Qur'an bi al-ra'yi.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-147
Author(s):  
Kirstin A. Mills

This article examines the processes of fragmentation and haunting surrounding the explosion of competing translations, in 1796, of Gottfried August Bürger's German ballad ‘Lenore’. While the fragment has become known as a core narrative device of the Gothic, less attention has been paid to the ways that the fragment and fragmentation operate as dynamic, living phenomena within the Gothic's central processes of memory, inspiration, creation, dissemination and evolution. Taking ‘Lenore’ as a case study, this essay aims to redress this critical gap by illuminating the ways that fragmentation haunts the mind, the text, and the history of the Gothic as a process as much as a product. It demonstrates that fragmentation operates along lines of cannibalism, resurrection and haunting to establish a pattern of influence that paves the way for modern forms of gothic intertextuality and adaptation. Importantly, it thereby locates fragmentation as a process at the heart of the Gothic mode.


Author(s):  
Jesse Matz

Orlando and other texts express Woolf’s interest in subjective ‘time in the mind’, an interest she shared with other modernists who challenged chronological norms, but Woolf explored other forms of time as well. Some align her work with the theories of Henri Bergson, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Mary Sturt, and this variety—the way Woolf developed forms of time across her career as a writer—tracks with the phenomenological hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur. His Time and Narrative explains the dialectical pattern according to which Woolf perpetually found new ways for time and narrative to shape each other, culminating in novels that thematize this reciprocal relationship between the art of narrative and possibilities for temporal engagement. Woolf’s early fiction breaks with linear chronology, starting a series of virtuoso performances of temporal poiesis.


2012 ◽  
pp. 19-34
Author(s):  
Francine Markovits
Keyword(s):  
The Face ◽  

Don't philosophers die just like all other men? In order to speak of the death of philosophers, why choose an author like Boureau-Deslandes, who collected anecdotes of insolence in the face of death? Undoubtedly, free minds could only disarm theology by joking about it. The mental, moral and playful mechanisms of the mind can be taken apart to reveal the bans inscribed in the conscience through the workings of institutions. Against the philosophies of melancholy, fear, death and power, a philosophy of banter is a cheerful philosophy, an ethics of taste that destabilises the rules. It is this practice of bantering insolence that turns temperament into virtue and a man into a philosopher.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 20150883 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Albuquerque ◽  
Kun Guo ◽  
Anna Wilkinson ◽  
Carine Savalli ◽  
Emma Otta ◽  
...  

The perception of emotional expressions allows animals to evaluate the social intentions and motivations of each other. This usually takes place within species; however, in the case of domestic dogs, it might be advantageous to recognize the emotions of humans as well as other dogs. In this sense, the combination of visual and auditory cues to categorize others' emotions facilitates the information processing and indicates high-level cognitive representations. Using a cross-modal preferential looking paradigm, we presented dogs with either human or dog faces with different emotional valences (happy/playful versus angry/aggressive) paired with a single vocalization from the same individual with either a positive or negative valence or Brownian noise. Dogs looked significantly longer at the face whose expression was congruent to the valence of vocalization, for both conspecifics and heterospecifics, an ability previously known only in humans. These results demonstrate that dogs can extract and integrate bimodal sensory emotional information, and discriminate between positive and negative emotions from both humans and dogs.


1998 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. 511-513
Author(s):  
Tom Appleton

Canadair's CL-415 amphibious aircraft is arguably the most advanced firefighting waterbomber on the face of the earth. With its high water capacity and advanced performance, it leads the way in rapid initial attack to contain fires.


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