Jacob L. Mey

Barbara Gorayska

This new collection of contributions to the field of Cognitive Technology (CT) provides the (to date) widest spectrum of the state of the art in the discipline — a disciple dedicated to humane factors in tool design. The reader will find here a summary of past research as well as an overview of new areas for future investigations. The collection contains an extensive CT agenda identifying many as yet unsolved, CT-related, design issues. An exciting new development is the concept of ‘natural technology’. Some examples of natural technologies are discussed and the merits of empirical investigations (into what they are and how they develop), of interest to cognitive scientists and designers of new (corrective, digital) technologies, are pointed out. Another distinctive feature of the collection is that it provides examples of scientists’ tools; important, too, is its emphasis on ethics in tool design. The collection ends with a provocative coda (any responses can appear in the new, annual, CT forum of the Pragmatics and Cognition journal). The collection will appeal to all scientists, humanists and professionals interested in the interface between human cognitive processes and the technologies that augment them.

Co-existence, convergence and co-evolution

Cognition and Technology

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks as well as studies that provide new insights by building bridges to neighbouring fields such as neuroscience and cognitive science. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.

A Study in Literary Pragmatics

When Voices Clash

Alessandro Capone

This volume is part of the series ‘Pragmatics, Philosophy and Psychology’, edited for Springer by Alessandro Capone. It is intended for an audience of undergraduate and graduate students, as well as postgraduate and advanced researchers. This volume focuses on societal pragmatics. One of the main concerns of societal pragmatics is the world of language users. We are interested in the investigation of linguistic practices in the context of societal practices (‘praxis’, to use a term used in the Wittgensteinian and other traditions). It is clear that the world of users, including their practices, their culture, and their social aims has to be taken into account and seriously investigated when we deal with the pragmatics of language. It is not enough to discuss principles of language use solely in the guise of abstract theoretical tools. Consequently, the present volume focuses explicitly on the interplay of abstract, theoretical principles and the necessities imposed by societal contexts often requiring a more flexible use of such theoretical tools. The volume includes articles on pragmemes, politeness and anti-politeness, dialogue, joint utterances, discourse markers, pragmatics and the law, institutional discourse, critical discourse analysis, pragmatics and culture, cultural scripts, argumentation theory, connectives and argumentation, language games and psychotherapy, slurs, the analysis of funerary rites, as well as an authoritative chapter by Jacob L. Mey on societal pragmatics.

Interdisciplinary Studies in Pragmatics, Culture and Society

"For the colonized person, objectivity is always directed against him" (Frantz Fanon). Colonized persons do not live on what we call (or used to call) the "colonies" alone. In general, objective reality, or the "facts of life", are very different depending on the kind of life you can afford. This goes for language as well; and it explains both the title of this book, and gives it its "raison d'être". It deals with power in language, and asks: Who is really in command when we use "our" language? And why does it make sense to talk about a language of power (or lack of it)? The powerful are the colonizers, the colonized are the powerless, in language as in geopolitics. Colonizers and colonized alike, however, are subject to the social and economic conditions prevailing in society and therefore, a thorough analysis of these conditions is a must for any socially-oriented theory of language use.

A study in Linguistic Pragmatics

Whose Language?

Cognitive technology : in search of a humane interface

Theory and Practice

Pragmalinguistics

Daniel N. Silva

Humans are adaptive beings. Gradually, we have produced the fundamental capacities for our cooperation, recognition of intentions, and interaction which led to the development of language and culture. The present collective volume builds on an orientation to pragmatics as the sustained and principled human adaptability in interaction, form, and meaning. Working on different strands of such a socially oriented pragmatics, the authors gathered in this volume study the adaptability of language as shaped by the conditions of society, culture, and cognition. Grouped in four sections, the book’s chapters explore the embedding of adaptability in language ideology, text, communicative practice, and learning. Adopting these various perspectives, the authors gauge how language users navigate the different layers of societal, cognitive, and communicative constraints, while adapting their communicative practices, language ideologies, and technologies of interaction to their everyday living conditions.

Jacob L. Mey

Books

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