35.1495, Books: Salience of Information in Japanese: Shimojo (2024)

Tue May 14 02:05:11 UTC 2024

LINGUIST List: Vol-35-1495. Tue May 14 2024. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 35.1495, Books: Salience of Information in Japanese: Shimojo (2024)

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Date: 13-May-2024
From: Ellena Moriarty [ellena.moriarty at cambridge.org]
Subject: Salience of Information in Japanese: Shimojo (2024)

Title: Salience of Information in Japanese
Subtitle: Discourse and the Syntax–Pragmatics Interface
Publication Year: 2024
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
                http://www.cambridge.org/linguistics
Book URL: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009421805

Author: Mitsuaki Shimojo
Hardback: ISBN: 9781009421829 Pages: 282 Price: U.S. $ 125.00
Hardback: ISBN: 9781009421829 Pages: 282 Price: U.K. £ 95.00
Hardback: ISBN: 9781009421829 Pages: 282 Price: Europe EURO 110.87
Abstract:

'Salience' is a linguistic phenomenon whereby information that is
'given', or 'new', is distributed and presented within a sentence in
particular ways that convey its relevance. Although it has been widely
described as the speaker's linguistic choices based on the hearer's
perspective, it has received less attention as the speaker's
manipulations of the hearer's cognitive states. This timely study
redresses that balance by analysing several morphosyntactic phenomena
in Japanese, drawing on a wide range of authentic language examples.
Taking a functionalist perspective, it brings together studies of
grammar and discourse, which are often described separately, and
deploys the combined grammar-discourse approach in Role and Reference
Grammar, the structural-functionalist theory in which syntax,
semantics, and pragmatics are equally central to our understanding of
language. It also offers an analysis of second language (L2) learners'
Japanese discourse, and demonstrates the relevance of that analysis to
issues outside of traditional second language research.

‘Shimojo’s book breaks new ground in the investigation of information
structure in Japanese. It explores important issues in the
syntax-pragmatics interface using discourse data collected from L1 and
L2 Japanese speakers and applying the approaches of Role and Reference
Grammar and Centering Theory. The result is a revealing and insightful
account of the role of salience in the analysis of the interaction of
syntax and discourse in Japanese.’  Robert D.  Van Valin, Jr,
University at Buffalo (SUNY) and Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf

'The exploration of NP-wa vis-à-vis zero anaphora on the one hand and
NP-ga on the other has been a central issue in Japanese linguistics.
Despite the substantial body of literature dedicated to this subject,
recent years have seen minimal progress. This book reexamines
previously addressed observations and introduces novel findings,
aligning with the ongoing trend towards more inclusive approaches in
linguistic analysis to account for a spectrum of syntactic phenomena
influenced by context and pragmatics. The study is anchored in a
meticulous literature review and an analysis of the author’s
experimental data, notably incorporating sentences created by L2
learners of Japanese. This contribution significantly enhances our
understanding of the salience of information encoding in discourse,
solidifying its place as an indispensable reference for years to
come.'  Yoko Hasegawa, University of California, Berkeley

‘This book is a very welcome development in Role and Reference
Grammar, as it is grounded in natural discourse data, and so pushes
the envelope on our understanding of the role of pragmatic factors in
determining morphosyntactic form, covering not only focus structure,
but also reference, cohesion, and salience.’  Randy J. LaPolla,
Beijing Normal University and Nanyang Technological University

‘This book is an essential reference in the study of discourse
salience, its morphosyntactic realizations and attention control
functions in discourse. Through in-depth investigation of authentic L1
and L2 Japanese texts, the author revisits and refines the
bidimensional model of salience and illustrates the strengths of
parallel architecture theories in the exploration of the
discourse-morphosyntax interface.’  Delia Bentley, Professor of
Linguistics, The University of Manchester

Written In: English (eng)

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