The book offers a comprehensive study of the different forms of subject-verb and subject-auxiliary-inversion in Modern English declarative sentences. It treats inversion as a speaker-based decision for reordering within a fairly rigid word order system and identifies the meaning of the construction in terms of point of view and speaker subjectivity. This semantic claim is tested against the occurrence, as well as the absence, of the different forms of inversion in natural discourse. The analysis of the pragmatics and discourse function of inversion is based on the LOB and the Brown corpus and takes into account various textual relations: British and American English, written mode, style, text type, genre. The results suggest a strong affinity with the greater or lesser subjectivity of a text: the construction is a marker of interpersonal meaning. Provided the context is one of relative unexpectedness, it additionally becomes a discourse marker, which points to the limited value of quantitative corpus data in functional syntax.

This collection aims first to establish a structure-independent, language-independent definition of pragmatic voice, and more specifically then a universal functional definition of “inverse”. The grammar and pragmatic function of the four major voice constructions — direct-active, inverse, passive, antipassive — are surveyed using narrative texts from 14 languages: Koyukon (Athabascan), Plains Cree (Algonquian), Chepang (Tibeto-Burman), Squamish and Bella Coola (Salish), Sahaptin (Sahaptian), Kutenai (isolate), Surinam Carib (Carib), Spanish and Greek (Indo-European), Korean, Maasai (Nilotic), Cebuano and Karao (Philippine). The comparative quantified study of pragmatic voice functions tests the validity of a universal functional definition of voice and in particular of “inverse”. The cross-language comparison of grammatical structures that code the various voice functions then lays down the foundation for a non-trivial cross-language typology of “inverse”.

This book is a cultural-historical (rather than purely linguistic) introduction to American English. The first part consists of a general account of variation in American English. It offers concise but comprehensive coverage of such topics as the history of American English; regional, social and ethnic variation; variation in style (including slang); and British and American differences. The second part of the book puts forward an account of how American English has developed into a dominant variety of the English language. It focuses on the ways in which intellectual traditions such as puritanism and republicanism, in shaping the American world view, have also contributed to the distinctiveness of American English.

The volumes of The Cambridge history of the English language reflect the spread of English from its beginnings in Anglo-Saxon England to its current role as a multifaceted global language that dominates international communication in the 21st century.

Sexual Inversion was the first English medical textbook about homosexuality. It had a chequered publishing history, going through five editions between 1896 and 1915. This edition, with a long critical introduction, places the book in its intellectual and social contexts, and considers the historiography surrounding this important work.

Collection examining the Anglo-Norman language in a variety of texts and contexts, in military, legal, literary and other forms.

Many “translation solutions” (often called “procedures,” “techniques,” or “strategies”) have been proposed over the past 50 years or so in French, Chinese, Russian, Ukrainian, English, Spanish, German, Japanese, Italian, Czech, and Slovak. This book analyzes, criticizes and compares them, proposing a new list of solutions that can be used in training translators to work between many languages. The book also traces out an entirely new history of contemporary translation studies, showing for example how the Russian tradition was adapted in China, how the impact of transformational linguistics was resisted, and how scholarship has developed an intercultural metalanguage over and above the concerns of specific national languages. The book reveals the intensely political nature of translation theory, even in its most apparently technical aspects. The lists were used to advance the agendas of not just linguistic nationalisms but also state regimes – this is a history in which Hitler, Stalin, and Mao all played roles, Communist propaganda and imperialist evangelism were both legitimized, Ukrainian advances in translation theory were forcefully silenced in the 1930s, the Cold War both stimulated the application of transformational grammar and blocked news of Russian translation theory, French translation theory was conscripted into the agenda of Japanese exceptionalism, and much else.

Iconicity and naturalness remain controversial concepts in recent linguistic research. The present volume aims to scrutinize unresolved issues of iconicity and naturalness in language. The studies discuss topics such as naturalism in the philosophy of language and the epistemology of linguistics, linguistic iconicity in semiotics, iconic structures in Sign Languages, natural and unnatural sound patterns, the iconic nature of parts of speech, the relation between (un)markedness and naturalness, and lexical and syntactic iconicity. The research conducted is based on sound (meta)theoretical analyses and/or original empirical research. The data and innovative views presented are bound to spark discussion in an age-old debate that has lost nothing of its significance.

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.