English as a Global Language

English as a Global Language
Author: David Crystal
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2012-03-29
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 1107611806

Written in a detailed and fascinating manner, this book is ideal for general readers interested in the English language.

The Construal of Spatial Meaning

The Construal of Spatial Meaning
Author: Carita Paradis
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2013-04-25
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0191613142

This book considers how language users express and understand literal and metaphorical spatial meaning not only in language but also through gesture and pointing. Researchers explore the ways in which theoretical developments in language and cognition, new empirical techniques, and new computational facilities have led to a greater understanding of the relationship between physical space and mental space as expressed in human communication.

Speech Rhythm in Varieties of English

Speech Rhythm in Varieties of English
Author: Robert Fuchs
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2015-09-25
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3662478188

This book addresses the question whether Educated Indian English is more syllable-timed than British English from two standpoints: production and perception. Many post-colonial varieties of English, which are mostly spoken as a second language in countries such as India, Nigeria and the Philippines, are thought to have a syllable-timed rhythm, whereas first language varieties such as British English are characterized as being stress-timed. While previous studies mostly relied on a single acoustic correlate of speech rhythm, usually duration, the author proposes a multidimensional approach to the production of speech rhythm that takes into account various acoustic correlates. The results reveal that the two varieties differ with regard to a number of dimensions, such as duration, sonority, intensity, loudness, pitch and glottal stop insertion. The second part of the study addresses the question whether the difference in speech rhythm between Indian and British English is perceptually relevant, based on intelligibility and dialect discrimination experiments. The results reveal that speakers generally find the rhythm of their own variety more intelligible and that listeners can identify which variety a speaker is using on the basis of differences in speech rhythm.