Human languages are extraordinarily diverse, and yet there are also systematic commonalities among them. Some of these commonalities can be considered design features of language. These are definitional properties, like regularity and compositionality (the ability to re-use and recombine linguistic units to create new meanings), that all languages share. Other commonalities are perhaps more surprising. […]

Gender systems are endlessly fascinating, from those where meaning determines gender (Tamil), those where it is dominant but leaves intriguing loopholes (Mian) to those where form has an important role (Russian). Now it is time to integrate these systems into a fuller typology of nominal classification, taking in classifier systems as well as gender. Rethinking […]

How can we make academia a more climate-aware, ecologically and socially ethical place? How can we ensure a more sustainable future? It is now scientifically established that the current state of the earth, and its evolution, represent a threat to human lives, and ultimately to the human race. Climate change scholars link this climate emergency […]

Las dificultades para precisar el concepto de “dialecto” afectan directamente a la identificación de áreas dialectales. Desde su nacimiento como disciplina lingüística, la dialectología ha tratado de identificar tales áreas mediante distintos procedimientos ‘dialectométricos’. Para ello han sido fundamentales los conceptos de ‘frontera’, ‘isoglosa’, ‘distancia’ o ‘similitud’. Sin embargo, la complejidad sociolingüística y multimediática de […]

The relationship between how we speak and who we are is a fascinating one. To what extent are our identities reflected through the way we speak, and to what extent are they performed? The subject is especially fascinating when we consider the experience of adolescents, who are at an age where they are constantly constructing, […]

A África tem uma diversidade linguística riquíssima, mas as políticas linguísticas adotadas pelos países membros, no período pós-independências ofuscaram e apagaram o valor das línguas autóctones em prejuízo das línguas dos colonizadores europeus. Por outro lado, os crioulos que surgiram ainda não têm nenhum status embora sendo língua das maiorias. Traços das línguas africanas estão […]

As we are nearing 100 years since Edward Sapir’s 1925 article in the first volume of Language (doi 10.1111/j.1467-1770.1956.tb00847.x), some of his words still resonate strongly today. Sapir posed the problem of the ‘psychology of speech sounds’, emphasizing that phonemes could not be equated with their sensorimotor substance and highlighting the key roles of the […]

Na apresentação, procuramos mostrar que o português apresenta quatro padrões de reduplicação que podem ser descritos por diferentes modelos de análise, alguns mais formalistas, outros mais funcionalistas. Através de farta exemplificação, observamos que, em português, o processo está a serviço dos principais processos de formação de palavras, a derivação (prefixal e sufixal) e a composição.

Après avoir rappelé la généalogie théorique de la sémiotique, entre linguistique, anthropologie et phénoménologie, nous souhaitons mettre en évidence les propriétés de la sémiotique post-greimassienne en montrant que la “signification en acte”, son objet, implique simultanément la saisie des formants, leur structuration, leur énonciation, leur mise en perspective, leurs implications dans le champ social et […]