Conference selection

CSLING 13 (CSLING 2023)

New York, 18-23 January, 2023

John Benjamins will be virtually present at CSLING 13. Check out our promotional material and discount order form through the links below. If you wish to talk about our books, your work, and possible publishing projects please get in touch with anke.delooper at benjamins.nl.

Check out our selection of top titles for this conference!


Showing all 26 titles.

SFSL 57
Cover not available

Advances in Functional Linguistics

Columbia School beyond its origins

Edited by Joseph Davis, Radmila J. Gorup and Nancy Stern

This collection carries the functionalist Columbia School of linguistics forward with contributions on linguistic theory, semiotics, phonology, grammar, lexicon, and anthropology. Columbia School linguistics views language as a symbolic tool whose structure is shaped both by its communicative function and by the... full description
December 2006. x, 344 pp.
SFSL 62
Cover not available

Body, Language and Meaning in Conflict Situations

A semiotic analysis of gesture-word mismatches in Israeli-Jewish and Arab discourse

Orit Sônia Waisman

This original research applies semiotics to linguistic and non-linguistic segments in a text in search of potential correlations between them. The resultant mapping is applied to cases of gesture-word mismatches that are evident in conflict situations. The current study adopts the word systems approach, a sign-based... full description
November 2010. xi, 191 pp.
SFSL 70
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Case in Russian

A sign-oriented approach

Alexandra Beytenbrat

This volume presents an analysis of Russian case from a sign-oriented perspective. The study was inspired by William Diver’s analysis of Latin case and follows the spirit of the Columbia School of linguistics. The fundamental premise that underlies this volume is that language is a communicative tool shaped by human... full description
September 2015. xiii, 182 pp.
SFSL 51
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Cognitive and Communicative Approaches to Linguistic Analysis

Edited by Ellen Contini-Morava, Robert S. Kirsner and Betsy Rodríguez-Bachiller

This volume is the product of a Columbia School Linguistics Conference held at Rutgers University in October 1999, where the plenary speaker was Ronald W. Langacker, a founder of Cognitive Linguistics. The goal of the book is to promote two kinds of dialogue. First, dialogue between Cognitive Grammar and the... full description
December 2004. viii, 389 pp.
SFSL 77
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Columbia School Linguistics in the 21st Century

Edited by Nancy Stern, Ricardo Otheguy, Wallis Reid and Jaseleen Sackler

This collection is the fifth volume of selected papers to emerge from Columbia School (CS) linguistics conferences. A radically functionalist approach, CS shares with Cognitive linguistics the view that grammar is composed of form-meaning correspondences. CS views language as a symbolic tool whose structure is shaped... full description
October 2019. vii, 311 pp.
P&bns 271
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Evidentiality Revisited

Cognitive grammar, functional and discourse-pragmatic perspectives

Edited by Juana I. Marín-Arrese, Gerda Haßler and Marta Carretero

Evidentiality Revisited focuses on semantic-pragmatic based frameworks for the study of evidentials and evidential strategies in European languages (Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Lithuanian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish). The book also presents discourse-pragmatic studies, with special emphasis on the... full description
March 2017. vi, 320 pp.
SLCS 157
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Exploring Functional-Cognitive Space

Christopher S. Butler and Francisco Gonzálvez-García

This book, intended primarily for researchers and advanced students, expands greatly on previous work by the authors exploring the topography of the multidimensional “functional-cognitive space” within which functional, cognitive and/or constructionist approaches to language can be located. The analysis covers a broad... full description
August 2014. xviii, 579 pp.
SFSL 79
Cover not available

Follow the Signs

Archetypes of consciousness embodied in the signs of language

Rodney B. Sangster

In this his latest book, Sangster presents a comprehensive theory that takes the cognitive view of language in a promising new direction, based upon how linguistic signs relate to one another at different levels of consciousness. At the rational level, where signs are necessarily experienced in context, they are... full description
February 2020. xiii, 175 pp.
SFSL 55
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Language and Meaning

The structural creation of reality

Christopher Beedham

This book illustrates the structuralist idea that language creates the reality we perceive. The data presented in this volume focus on the problematic issues of the passive construction and irregular (strong) verbs, with examples taken primarily from English with separate subsections on German and Russian. The author... full description
November 2005. xiv, 225 pp.
LL&LT 55
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Languaging in Language Learning and Teaching

A collection of empirical studies

Edited by Wataru Suzuki and Neomy Storch

This book is the first to bring together a collection of recent empirical studies investigating languaging, an important construct first introduced by Swain in 2006 but which has since been deployed in a growing number of L2 studies. The contributing authors include both established and emerging authors from around... full description
August 2020. vii, 313 pp.
SFSL 58
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Lexical Creativity, Texts and Contexts

Edited by Judith Munat

The coining of novel lexical items and the creative manipulation of existing words and expressions is heavily dependent on contextual factors, including the semantic, stylistic, textual and social environments in which they occur. The twelve specialists contributing to this collection aim to illuminate creativity in... full description
November 2007. xvi, 294 pp.
SFSL 75
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Lexical meaning as a testable hypothesis

The case of English look, see, seem and appear

Nadav Sabar

This book offers an original treatment of the lexical form look. The work is innovative in that it establishes that the Columbia School conception of an invariant meaning – hitherto found primarily in grammar – is equally operative in core vocabulary items like look and see. The upshot is that grammar and lexicon are... full description
April 2018. xv, 144 pp.
SFSL 78
Cover not available

Lexicalization patterns in color naming

A cross-linguistic perspective

Edited by Ida Raffaelli, Daniela Katunar and Barbara Kerovec

The volume presents sixteen chapters focused on lexicalization patterns used in color naming in a variety of languages. Although previous studies have dealt with categorization and perceptual salience of color terms, few studies have been consistently conducted in order to investigate phonological, morphological,... full description
October 2019. vi, 429 pp.
SFSL 64
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Linguistic Theory and Empirical Evidence

Edited by Bob de Jonge and Yishai Tobin

This volume further elaborates the empirical tradition of Columbia School (CS) Linguistics by offering diverse empirical analyses for a wide variety of languages. These studies open a much needed debate advocating the necessity of the independent validation of linguistic hypotheses. This research exemplifies how such... full description
June 2011. vi, 299 pp.
SFSL 54
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Meaning Predictability in Word Formation

Novel, context-free naming units

Pavol Štekauer

This book aims to contribute to a growing interest amongst psycholinguists and morphologists in the mechanisms of meaning predictability. It presents a brand-new model of the meaning-prediction of novel, context-free naming units, relating the wordformation and wordinterpretation processes. Unlike previous studies,... full description
March 2005. xxii, 289 pp.
SFSL 61
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The Motivated Syntax of Arbitrary Signs

Cognitive constraints on Spanish clitic clustering

Erica C. García

This detailed study challenges the claim that syntax is arbitrary and autonomous, as well as the assumption that Spanish clitic clusters constitute grammaticalized units. Diverse--apparently unrelated--restrictions on clitic clustering in both simplex VP's and Accusative cum Infinitive structures are shown to be... full description
September 2009. xv, 335 pp.
SFSL 76
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Questioning Theoretical Primitives in Linguistic Inquiry

Papers in honor of Ricardo Otheguy

Edited by Naomi Shin and Daniel Erker

Across the world, professional linguistic inquiry is in full bloom, largely as result of pioneering thinkers who helped rapidly modernize the study of human language in the last century. As the field continues to move forward, further solidifying its position as a conduit of insight into the human condition, it is... full description
December 2018. vi, 293 pp.
P&bns 251
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Reclaiming Control as a Semantic and Pragmatic Phenomenon

Patrick J. Duffley

This monograph is part of a growing research agenda in which semantics and pragmatics not only complement the grammar, but replace it. The analysis is based on the assumption that human language is not primarily about form, but about form-meaning pairings. This runs counter to the autonomous-syntax postulate... full description
October 2014. x, 246 pp.
SFSL 73
Cover not available

Semantic Structure in English

Jim Feist

Syntax puts our meaning (“semantics”) into sentences, and phonology puts the sentences into the sounds that we hear and there must, surely, be a structure in the meaning that is expressed in the syntax and phonology. Some writers use the phrase “semantic structure”, but are referring to conceptual structure; since we... full description
September 2016. xv, 452 pp.
SFSL 48
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Signal, Meaning, and Message

Perspectives on sign-based linguistics

Edited by Wallis Reid, Ricardo Otheguy and Nancy Stern

This is the second volume of papers on sign-based linguistics to emerge from Columbia School linguistics conferences. One set of articles offers semantic analyses of grammatical features of specific languages: English full-verb inversion; Serbo-Croatian deictic pronouns; English auxiliary do; Italian pronouns egli and... full description
July 2002. xxii, 413 pp.
SFSL 74
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The Substance and Value of Italian Si

Joseph Davis

This book offers an original treatment of the Italian clitic si. Sharply separating encoded grammar from inference in discourse, it proposes a unitary meaning for si, including impersonals, passives, and reflexives. Si signals third-person participancy but makes no distinctions of number, gender, or case role. The... full description
September 2017. xiii, 257 pp.
SFSL 72
Cover not available

Textplicating Iconophones

Articulatory iconic action in Ulysses

Nurit Levy

This volume applies a sign-oriented approach to the description of articulatory and acoustic iconic phenomena in James Joyce’s Ulysses. In its hypothesis, the greater the role of sensory experience in the message of a text, the more likely it is to employ linguistic representation in articulated sounds iconically to... full description
April 2016. xvii, 333 pp.
SFSL 68
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Theory and Practice in Functional-Cognitive Space

Edited by María de los Ángeles Gómez González, Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez and Francisco Gonzálvez-García

The differences among functionalist, cognitivist and/or constructionist models are generally taken to be not absolute, but rather a matter of emphasis and degree, with an increasing permeability between paradigms arising from cross-fertilizing influences. This book further explores this burgeoning area of research... full description
July 2014. vi, 327 pp.
SFSL 71
Cover not available

Third Person References

Forms and functions in two spoken genres of Spanish

Jenny Dumont

This volume, a case study on the grammar of third person references in two genres of spoken Ecuadorian Spanish, examines from a discourse-analytic perspective how genre affects linguistic patterns and how researchers can look for and interpret genre effects. This marks a timely contribution to corpus linguistics, as... full description
February 2016. ix, 179 pp.
SFSL 69
Cover not available

Usage-Based Approaches to Language Change

Edited by Evie Coussé and Ferdinand von Mengden

Usage-based approaches to language have gained increasing attention in the last two decades. The importance of change and variation has always been recognized in this framework, but has never received central attention. It is the main aim of this book to fill this gap. Once we recognize that usage is crucial for our... full description
July 2014. v, 275 pp.
LL&LT 49
Cover not available

Usage-inspired L2 Instruction

Researched pedagogy

Edited by Andrea E. Tyler, Lourdes Ortega, Mariko Uno and Hae In Park

This book presents a set of compelling essays collectively making a persuasive case for why a usage-based perspective on language is fast becoming a leading theoretical framework for investigating second language (L2) learning and the foundation for effective, innovative, engaging pedagogy. Drawing on 20 years of... full description
February 2018. xvii, 324 pp.