Looking Beyond Words: Gestures in the Pedagogy of Second Languages in Multilingual Canada

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Title: Looking Beyond Words
Subtitle: Gestures in the Pedagogy of Second Languages in Multilingual Canada
Publication Year: 2015
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
http://www.cambridgescholars.com/

Book URL: http://www.cambridgescholars.com/looking-beyond-words

Author: Giuliana Salvato

Hardback: ISBN:  9781443880121 Pages: 185 Price: U.K. £ 41.99
Hardback: ISBN:  9781443880121 Pages: 185 Price: U.S. $ 71.95

Abstract:

This book is a result of the growing number of insights found in recent
research on gesture studies and language acquisition, which have renewed the
attention of scholars in gesture functions and meanings in communication and
language learning. Observation of the participation of both gesture and speech
in the formulation of meaning has revealed that communication is typically
multimodal. This perspective has produced engrossing research questions,
particularly in contexts where the combination of languages and cultures is
complex and diversified. Competence in multiple languages and in different
semiotic systems inevitably impacts the way in which people interact and learn
languages. Given its status as a country of immigration, Canada provides such
a context for this study.

This book discusses the changes that the literature on gesture studies can
help implement in current practices of language pedagogy. By including gesture
as a nonverbal dimension of language and as a means for language acquisition,
it provides a contrast to those traditions that have viewed gesture as a
marginal aspect of communication and language learning. In addition, this book
offers the results of three research studies in Italian language classes in
Canada, showing that gesture enables a multimodal approach in language
pedagogy and a richer experience for both teachers and learners.

Cognition and Communication in Extraterrestrial Intelligence

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Chapter proposals are invited for an edited book titled ”Cognition and Communication in Extraterrestrial Intelligence.” To date, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has emphasized technological aspects, as astronomers use radio and optical telescopes to search for signals from advanced civilizations at interstellar distances. At the same time, biologists have researched the prospects for microbial life on other planets. This book will bridge the gap between the biologists studying microbial life and the astronomers searching for artificial signals from extraterrestrial intelligence by focusing on the likely nature of communication systems and intelligence on other planets. Contributions are invited from an internationally diverse group of scholars from a range of disciplines including but not limited to linguistics. Chapters should focus on the possible nature of cognition and/or communication of intelligence – either biological or artificial – that may exist elsewhere in the galaxy. Contributions that specifically address the prospects for language-like features in extraterrestrial communication systems are especially welcome.

Interested authors should send a 400-word abstract, 200-word biography, and sample of a previously published chapter or article to Douglas Vakoch at dvakoch@setiinternational.org by January 15, 2016. Proposers will be notified about whether their submissions are accepted for the book by February 1, 2016. For accepted proposals first drafts of full chapters (8,000 – 9,000 words) are due by June 1, 2016, and final versions are due August 1, 2016. Only previously unpublished papers will be considered. Preference will be given to authors who have already earned a doctorate.

Confirmed contributors and their chapter topics include:
”The Evolutionary Psychology of Extraterrestrials”
Jerome H. Barkow, Dalhousie University, Canada
”Situated and Embodied Cognition and Its Relevance to Extraterrestrial Intelligence”
Pauli Laine, University of Jyväskylä, Finland and David Dunér, Lund University, Sweden
”Anticipating the Conceptual Worlds of Extraterrestrial Intelligence: An Embodied Cognition Approach”
Heath Matheson, University of Pennsylvania, USA
”Cephalopod Behavior and Neurobiology: An Alternative Model for Intelligence”
Dominic Sivitilli and David H. Gire, University of Washington, USA
”Intra- and Interspecies Dolphin Communication: Insights from an Aquatic Alien World”
Denise Herzing, The Wild Dolphin Project and Florida Atlantic University, USA
”The Challenges of Understanding Extraterrestrial Intelligence: Lessons from the Study of Non-human Terrestrial Intelligences”
Con Slobodchikoff, Northern Arizona University, USA
”From Universal Constraints to Linguistic Universals, or Why Extraterrestrial Intelligences Can Tell Lies and Jokes”
Meir-Simchah Panzer, Bar-Ilan University, Israel and Shlomo Dror, Friedlander Center for Leadership Development, USA

Given that we have no examples of extraterrestrial life to study, and no empirical proof that such life even exists, there are significant methodological constraints on attempting to anticipate the nature of cognition and communication in extraterrestrial intelligence. Chapters that highlight these constraints are especially welcome.

The editor of ”Cognition and Communication in Extraterrestrial Intelligence,” Douglas Vakoch, is President of SETI International, which has as one of its priorities to ”research and communicate to the public the many factors that influence the origins, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe, with a special emphasis on … (1) the fraction of life-bearing worlds on which intelligence evolves, (2) the fraction of intelligence-bearing worlds with civilizations having the capacity and motivation for interstellar communication, and (3) the longevity of such civilizations” (http://setiinternational.org/). His work in SETI was featured in the October 2015 issues of the American Psychological Association’s ”Monitor on Psychology” (http://bit.ly/1VRoXb4) and the British Psychological Society’s ”The Psychologist” (http://bit.ly/1N8BpiB). Vakoch has edited a dozen books, including ”Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence” (SUNY Press, 2011), ”Astrobiology, History, and Society: Life Beyond Earth and the Impact of Discovery” (Springer, 2013), ”Archaeology, Anthropology, and Interstellar Communication” (NASA, 2014), ”Extraterrestrial Altruism: Evolution and Ethics in the Cosmos” (Springer, 2014), and ”The Drake Equation: Estimating the Prevalence of Extraterrestrial Life Through the Ages” (Cambridge University Press, 2015).

Ruqaiya Hasan: a Life in Linguistics

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Ruqaiya Hasan: a Life in Linguistics

February 16-17, 2015

Macquarie University

At this symposium, hosted by the institution where Ruqaiya Hasan spent the most years of her career, and where she conducted some of her best known research, we will examine Hasan’s legacy, retrospectively and prospectively. Ruqaiya Hasan is one of our discipline’s most thoughtful and exciting scholars. Over a 60 year career, she showed the penetrating power of language. She understood that the reach of linguistics was “life-wide”, because this was also the central characteristic of language. She took her critical faculties to the examination of socialization, education, literary aesthetics, the making of mind in society, literacy and globalization, the intricacies of grammatical form, as well as the enormous scope of language, and what this means for the discipline of linguistics. She was a scholar who could think deeply, and range widely.

In her scholarship, she entered into dialogue with the ideas of the greatest thinkers on language in the 20th century: Saussure, Vygotsky, Vološinov, Bahktin, Firth, Mukařovský, Malinowki, Whorf, Labov, Bernstein, Halliday, Bourdieu, Derrida, Austin, Searle, Leech, and Levinson. And she showed herself to be at least their equal.

This two day event will begin with workshops on some of the key aspects of linguistic theory and application developed in Hasan’s work, including

  • ·      the relations of language and context
  • ·      language, ideology and semantic variation
  • ·      language and verbal art
  • ·      cohesion and cohesive harmony
  • ·      theorising and analysing meaning

On the second day, we will host a series of talks which will examine the intellectual vistas of her career, and explore the new horizons she has opened up in her relentless inquiry into the nature of language as humans’ most powerful collective resource.

The two day symposium will be free-of-charge. Registration details will be shortly available. On the evening of 17th of February all participants are invited to attend a dinner where we will share our memories of Ruqaiya as a friend, a colleague and a mentor.  We will circulate details of dinner venue and cost closer to the event.

Exploring the Mind through Music

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The Shepherd School of Music and Rice University are preparing to host their 3rd International Conference on Music and the Mind. The goal of the Conference is to promote collaboration between musicians and scientists and spur research, as well as increase public interest in this exciting discipline.

We are now accepting applications from musicians and scientists for the four-day program that will take place from June 6-10, 2016. All Conference costs are covered, including registration fees, housing and meals; fellows are only required to pay for their travel to campus. Please see the attached flyer and Conference website for full details:
www.rice.edu/mindandmusic <http://www.rice.edu/mindandmusic>

The mornings feature inter-disciplinary seminars: the science fellows will study music theory and history while the music fellows will learn about brain morphology, music perception and experimental design. The afternoons and evening sessions include presentations by distinguished visiting faculty including Ian Cross, Elizabeth Margulis, Isabelle Peretz, David Temperley, Michael Thaut, and Lawrence Zbikowski.

The fellows will also have a chance to share their work with their peers and the public in short, “TED”-style presentations. Many events are free and open to the public; seating will be on first-come, first-served basis. The morning seminars may be audited by members of the Rice and Baylor communities. Please consult our schedule for full Conference details.

Musicians and scientists at any stage in their careers are encouraged to apply. Fifteen musician and fifteen scientist applicants will be selected based on their demonstrated interest and accomplishment in the field. Applications are due November 1st, 2015 and applicants will be notified by January 15th, 2016. Please share this information with anyone whom you think might be interested.

With thanks and best wishes,
Anthony Brandt and Xaq Pitkow, Conference Directors
Shane Monds, Conference Coordinator
Lucy Lai and Zoe Tao, Assistant Conference Coordinators

to all subscribers..

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to all you faithful readers out there who are only subscribers – very sorry, but you’re all being deleted. there are over 42, 000 subscribers at the moment with zero posts who are being deleted by your faithful admin at this time.

otoh, if i actually _know_ you, then you will have already been given ‘author’ status and thus will not be deleted. no probs. and if you happen to want to subscribe after this, and join in the heaps of fun here on interstratal tension, then you will need to email me and make a personal request – since i’ve also disabled the subscribe function.

thank you spammers of the world for giving me so much head shaking to do in response to your ridiculous techniques for getting even a sliver of notice. but in opening more than one tab at once,  my deleting activities can go on in the background of my other amusements.

Language and Semiotic Studies

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Language and Semiotic Studies is a new peer-reviewed academic journal of international scope. Published by Soochow University Press, it is an authorized quarterly journal with an independent ISSN number (2096—031X) and CN number (32—1859/H /) granted by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of the People’s Republic of China. With all its contents appearing in one language (English), the journal serves and supports the Chinese Association for Language and Semiotic Studies (founded at Soochow University in 1994) while it seeks to expand international exchange in the new century.

The focus of Language and Semiotic Studies is language and signs. The journal reports and publishes high-quality research in the studies of language, literature, translation, language education, communication and culture from linguistic and semiotic perspectives. From time to time, we publish special issues devoted to topics of particular interest.

Manuscripts are requested to be submitted through e-mail attachments to lass@suda.edu.cn and there is no rigid limit to the length of manuscripts, provided that they are not exceedingly long. All submissions should contain an abstract, keywords, and a short bionote, and be formatted according to APA style.

Book: The Language of War Monuments

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Title: The Language of War Monuments
Series Title: Bloomsbury Semiotics

Publication Year: 2014
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing (formerly The Continuum International Publishing Group)
http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/

Book URL: http://bloomsbury.com/the-language-of-war-monuments-9781474224208/

Author: David Machin
Author: Gill Abousnnouga

Paperback: ISBN:  9781474224208 Pages: 248 Price: U.K. £ 24.99

Abstract:

This book analyses war monuments by developing a multimodal social-semiotic approach to understand how they communicate as three-dimensional objects. The book provides a practical tool-kit approach to how critical multimodal social semiotics should be done through visual, textual and material analysis. It ties this material analysis into the social and political contexts of production. Using examples across the 20th and 21st century the book’s chapters offer a way of analysing the way that monument designers have used specific semiotic choices in terms of things like iconography, objects, shape, form, angularity, height, materials and surface realisation to place representations of war in public places across Britain.

This social-semiotic approach to the study of war monuments serves three innovative purposes. First, it provides a contribution to the work on the ideological representations of war in Media and Cultural Studies and in Critical Discourse Analysis applied specifically to more banal realisations of discourse. Second, it responds to calls by historians for innovative ways to study war commemoration by providing an approach that offers both specific analysis of the objects and attends to matters of design. Thirdly, following in the relatively recent tradition of multimodal analysis, the arguments draw on the ideas of Kress and van Leeuwen (1996, 2001), adapting and extending their theories and models to the analysis of British commemorative war monuments, in order to develop a multimodal framework for the analysis of three dimensional objects.

Book: Retranslation

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Title: Retranslation
Subtitle: Translation, Literature, and Reinterpretation
Publication Year: 2014
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing (formerly The Continuum International Publishing Group)
http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/

Book URL: http://bloomsbury.com/retranslation-9781441147349/

Author: Sharon Deane-Cox

Electronic: ISBN:  9781472585080 Pages: 256 Price: U.K. £ 74.99
Hardback: ISBN:  9781441147349 Pages: 224 Price: U.K. £ 75.00

Abstract:

Retranslation is a phenomenon which gives rise to multiple translations of a particular work. But theoretical engagement with the motivations and outcomes of retranslation often falls short of acknowledging the complex nature of this repetitive process, and reasoning has so far been limited to considerations of progress, updating and challenge; there is even less in the way of empirical study.

This book seeks to redress the balance through its case studies on the initial translations and retranslations of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and Sand’s pastoral tale La Mare au diable within the British literary context. What emerges is a detailed exposition of how and why these works have been retold, alongside a critical re-evaluation of existing lines of enquiry into retranslation. A flexible methodology for the study of retranslations is also proposed which draws on Systemic Functional Grammar, narratology, narrative theory and genetic [sic] criticism.

Book: Systemic Phonology Recent Studies in English

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Systemic Phonology

Recent Studies in English

Edited by Wendy Bowcher and Bradley Smith

HB 9781845539399   £85

PB 9781845539467   £30

460pp

Series: Functional Linguistics, edited by Robin Fawcett

Receive 25% off the retail price when ordering from the book page quoting the discount code LINGUISTICS2014 (valid until the end of 2014).

https://www.equinoxpub.com/equinox/books/showbook.asp?bkid=479

This is the first volume in more than twenty years dedicated solely to Systemic Phonology.  It presents twelve original contributions by leading scholars and contains both theoretical and applied studies. The collection includes analyses of a wide-range of texts including news readings, literary classics, classroom discourse, and sung texts. Amongst the theoretical contributions is a chapter which outlines the generative model of intonation and punctuation of the Cardiff School of Systemic Functional Linguistics. The volume closes with an interactive chapter where readers can listen to, read, and obtain a first-hand guided experience of analysing texts using the Systemic model of intonation.

Systemic Phonology: Recent Studies in English is of value to scholars and students of phonology, phonetics, music studies, semiotics, and media studies, particularly within the Systemic Functional tradition. This volume is also of interest to any researchers analysing meaning in relation to sound and music.

Book: Multimodal Teaching and Learning

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Title: Multimodal Teaching and Learning
Subtitle: The Rhetorics of the Science Classroom
Publication Year: 2014
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing (formerly The Continuum International Publishing Group)
http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/

Book URL: http://bloomsbury.com/multimodal-teaching-and-learning-9781472522719/

Editor: Gunther Kress
Editor: Carey Jewitt
Editor: Jon Ogborn
Editor: Tsatsarelis Charalampos

Electronic: ISBN:  9781472571052 Pages: 208 Price: U.K. £ 14.99
Paperback: ISBN:  9781472522719 Pages: 248 Price: U.K. £ 14.99

Abstract:

This book takes a radically different look at communication, and in doing so presents a series of challenges to accepted views on language, on communication, on teaching and, above all, on learning.

Drawing on extensive research in science classrooms, it presents a view of communication in which language is not necessarily communication – image, gesture, speech, writing, models, spatial and bodily codes. The action of students in learning is radically rethought: all participants in communication are seen as active transformers of the meaning resources around them, and this approach opens a new window on the processes of learning.

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