New Books: Nuyts; Fortescue

[Paul Peranteau]

John Benjamins Publishing has brought out two new books related to
Functional Linguistics:

Epistemic Modality, Language, and Conceptualization.
A cognitive-pragmatic perspective.
Jan NUYTS (University of Antwerp)
Human Cognitive Processing 5
90 272 2357 2 / NLG 220.00 (Hardcover)
1 55619 983 X / USD 100.00 (Hardcover)

The relationship between language and conceptualization remains one
of the major puzzles in language research. This monograph addresses
this issue by means of an in depth corpus based and experimental
investigation of the major types of expressions of epistemic
modality in Dutch, German and English. By adopting a systematic
functional orientation, the book explains a whole range of
peculiarities of epistemic expression forms (synchronically and
diachronically), and it offers a clear perspective on which
cognitive systems are needed to get from the concept of epistemic
modality to its linguistic expression. On that basis the author
postulates a sophisticated, layered view of human
conceptualization. This book is of interest both to
scholars working on modality and related semantic dimensions, and
to the interdisciplinary field of researchers concerned with the
cognitive systems involved in language use.

* * * * * * * *
Pattern and Process. A Whiteheadian perspective on linguistics.
Michael Fortescue (University of Copenhagen)
Human Cognitive Processing 6
US & Canada: 1 58811 058 3  USD 86.00
Rest of world: 90 272 2358 0  NLG 190.00/
Hardcover 2001. viii, 312 pp.

The purpose of this book is to illustrate the relevance to linguistics
today of Whitehead's philosophy of organism. Although largely ignored by
linguists, Whitehead has in fact much to say as regards the cognitive
processes underpinning language pattern. His theory of symbolism conceives
of language as the 'systematization of expression', and relates meaning to
feeling (in the broadest sense). The Whiteheadian perspective allows a
synthesis of the psychological and the social approaches to language that
does not fall into one or another fashionable form of reductionism. The
volume represents a first application of Whitehead's thinking to a broad
range of linguistic phenomena, ranging from speech act theory to the
production and comprehension of texts, from language acquisition to
historical change and the evolution of language. It is argued that
Whitehead's holistic philosophy is uniquely suited to the view of language
as an emergent phenomenon - regardless of whether one's approach to
cognition is via the 'nativist' or the 'functionalist' route.


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