Language in Use

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.

Table of Contents

Figures and Tables

Acknowledgements

Introduction
Andrea Tyler

Part I: Language Processing and First Language Learning

1. Support from Language Processing for a Constructional Approach to Grammar
Adele E. Goldberg and Giulia M. L. Bencini
Princeton University and New York University

2. Homonyms and Functional Mappings in Language Acquisition
Devin Casenhiser
Princeton University

3. Little Persuaders: Japanese Children's Use of Datte (but-because) and Their Developing Theories of Mind
Tomoko Matsui, Peter McCagg, and Taeko Yamamoto
International Christian University, Japan

4. "Because" as a Maker of Collaborative Stance in Preschool Children's Peer Interactions
Amy Kyratzis
University of California, Santa Barbara

Part II: Issues in Second Language Learning

5. Contextualizing Interlanguage Pragmatics
Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig
Indiana University

6. Learning the Discourse of Friendship
Catherine Evans Davies
University of Alabama

7. Applied Cognitive Linguistics and Newer Trends in Foreign Language Teaching Methodology
Susanne Niemeier
University Koblenz-Landau, Germany

8. Language Play and Language Learning: Creating Zones of Proximal Development in a Third Grade Multilingual Classroom
Ana Christina Da Silva Iddings and Steven G. McCafferty
Vanderbilt University and University of Nevada at Las Vegas

9. Cognates, Cognition and Writing: An Investigation of the Use of Cognates by University Second-Language Learners
Robin Cameron Scarcella and Cheryl Boyd Zimmerman
University of California at Irvine and California State University, Fullerton

Part III: Discourse Resources and Meaning Construction

10. Intonation, Mental Representation, and Mutual Knowledge
Ann Wennerstrom
University of Washington

11. Linguistic Variation in the Lexical Episodes of University Classroom Talk
Eniko Csomay
San Diego State University

12. The Unofficial Business of Repair Initiation: Vehicles for Affiliation and Disaffiliation
Hansun Zhang Waring
Teachers College, Columbia University

13. Pragmatic Inferencing in Grammaticalization: A Case Study of Directional Verbs in Thai
Kingkarn Thepkanjana and Satoshi Uehara
Chulalongkorn University, Thailand and Tohoku University, Japan

Part IV: Language and Identity

14. "Trying on" the Identity of "Big Sister": Hypothetical Narratives in Parent-Child Discourse
Cynthia Gordon
Georgetown University

15. The Discourse of Local Identity in Postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina
Aida Premilovac
Georgetown University

16. Immigration Geographies, Multilingual Immigrants, and the Transmission of Minority Languages: Evidence from the Igbo Brain Drain
Rachel R. Reynolds
Drexel University

Reviews

"Reading this collection will be refreshing for all the scholars and students who are interested in language in context and how it relates to human cognition."—Pragmatics & Cognition

Contributors

Kathleen Bardovi-HarligGiulia M. L. BenciniDevin CasenhiserEniko CsomayAna Christina Da Silva IddingsCatherine Evans DaviesAdele E. GoldbergCynthia GordonAmy KyratzisTomoko MatsuiSteven G. McCaffertyPeter McCaggSusanne NiemeierAida PremilovacRachel ReynoldsRobin Cameron ScarcellaKingkarn ThepkanjanaAndrea E. TylerSatoshi UeharaHansun Zhang WaringAnn WennerstromTaeko YamamotoCheryl Boyd Zimmerman

Supplemental Materials

Awards

About the Author

Andrea E. Tyler is a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University. She is coauthor (with Vyvyan Evans) of The Semantics of English Prepositions: Spatial Scenes, Embodied Meaning, and Cognition and Language and Space.

Mari Takada is a PhD candidate in linguistics at Georgetown University.

Yiyoung Kim is a PhD candidate in applied linguistics at Georgetown University.

Diana Marinova is a graduate student in the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University.