Meta-informative Centering in Utterances
Between Semantics and Pragmatics
Editors
The notion of information has nowadays become crucial both in our daily life and in many branches of science and technology. In language studies, this notion was used as a technical term for the first time about at least fifty years ago. It is argued, however, that "Old" and "New", used traditionally for characterising information, refer in fact to the meta-informative status of communicated chunks of information. They provide information about other information. Since subjects and objects, as attention-driven phrases, are also related to aboutness, the presented Meta-Informative Centering (MIC) framework includes predication theory. By applying the MIC theory to their analyses of English, German, French, Polish, Russian, Greek, Latin, and Japanese, the authors provide comprehensive explanations of the most puzzling aspects of the pragmatic use of basic universal linguistic categories. It seems clear now that canonical syntactic patterns, their permutations, and diverse transformations do indeed reflect very truly the meta-informative encapsulation of utterances. As a consequence, this book presents new and coherent theoretical solutions as well as their very efficient applications.
[Studies in Language Companion Series, 143] 2013. xvii, 306 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
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Preface | pp. vii–viii
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IntroductionAndré Włodarczyk and Hélène Włodarczyk | pp. ix–xviii
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Part 1. Associative semantics and meta-informative centering
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Roles and anchors of semantic situationsAndré Włodarczyk | pp. 3–20
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Frames of semantic situationsAndré Włodarczyk | pp. 21–40
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Grounding of the meta-informative status of utterancesAndré Włodarczyk | pp. 41–58
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Attention-centered information in languageHélène Włodarczyk | pp. 59–100
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Part 2. Neuropsychological evidence for the MIC theory
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Semantic and episodic memory by reference to the ontological grounding of the old and new meta-informative statusFranz J. Stachowiak | pp. 103–120
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Tracing the role of memory and attention for the meta-informative validation of utterancesFranz J. Stachowiak | pp. 121–142
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Part 3. Meta-informative centering in languages
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It-clefts in the meta-informative structure of the utterance in Modern and Present-day EnglishAna E. Martínez-Insua and Javier Pérez-Guerra | pp. 145–166
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Discourse coherence and referent identification of subject ellipsis in JapaneseShigeko Nariyama | pp. 167–182
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Structure of centre of attention in a multi-party conversation in Japanese: Based on the data of a review meeting concerning a Science Café held in HiroshimaMiki Saijo | pp. 183–192
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Verbal aspect in Slavic languages between semantics and pragmaticsHélène Włodarczyk | pp. 193–230
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The position in the utterance and the melodic realisation of object and reflexive pronouns in classical modern literary RussianOlivier Azam | pp. 231–258
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Accented and unaccented pronouns in Ancient Greek: A pragmatic choice by the speakerJean-Christophe Pitavy | pp. 259–284
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Personal subject pronouns and the meta-informative centering of utterances in classical LatinPerrine Vedrenne-Cloquet | pp. 285–296
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Glossary of defined terminology | pp. 297–302
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Index | pp. 303–306
“The volume Meta-Informative Centering in Utterances: between Semantics and Pragmatics edited by André & Hélène Włodarczyk is a long-awaited publication. Through a series of international academic conferences held at the Centre for Theoretical and Applied Linguistics (CELTA), MIC Sorbonne 2008, 2010 and 2012, the participants witnessed how the MIC theory evolved and received international recognition among linguistic communities. Meta-Informative Centering theory is particularly interesting for researchers in Japanese and other languages in which social and interactional relationships among participants of linguistic communication are marked by grammatical forms. Linguistic theories that deal with syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects of languages abound, but MIC is unique in offering a coherent view of how those aspects interact to form the grammatical structure of a given language. This book is highly recommended to students and researchers interested in unifying socio-cultural aspects of language diversity in close connection with rigorous syntactic and semantic formalization”
Yasunari Harada, Professor at School of Law and Director at the Institute for Digital Enhancement of Cognitive Development, Waseda University
“The book “Meta-Informative Centering in Utterances - between Semantics and Pragmatics” edited by André & Hélène Włodarczyk (Studies in Language Companion Series. Amsterdam: Benjamins) represents an innovative approach to information structure. André & Hélène Włodarczyk’s meta-informative centering (MIC) theory is a unique, alternative framework to existing theories. It is built on the concepts of center of attention, meta-information and meta-informative status of information. A novel element in MIC is that it relies on associative semantics in which the concept of information is defined as a compound relational structure. The editors not only present their theory in a thought-provoking way but also provide experimental support for it through studies focusing on languages such as English, French, Polish, Russian, Japanese, Greek and Latin. This book is a must-read for everyone who is interested in information structure, linguistics and computer science.”
Istvan Kecskes, State University of New York, Albany
Cited by
Cited by 4 other publications
Stacewicz, Paweł & André Włodarczyk
Włodarczyk, André
Zielińska, Dorota
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Subjects
Main BIC Subject
CFG: Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General