With over 6,000 languages spoken worldwide and a history of colonialism and nationalism, people commonly have proficiency in the indigenous language of a region or of a non-localized minority group (ethnic, religious, Deaf, etc.), as well as in a national language. Monolingual or multilingual, dictionaries are products of their sociolinguistic environment. Though dictionaries may be treated by the public as a way to make the language into a static, bounded entity, lexicographers must contend with a lack of clear boundaries as to where their object languages end, given that their language communities include multilingual speakers. Despite this widespread bilingualism, language contact has not been thoroughly treated in English-language literature on lexicography. This chapter synthesizes the different ways that language contact manifests itself through dictionaries. It demonstrates that the asymmetry between the social standing of languages in contact manifests itself in the production and composition of dictionaries. It explores the difficulties that come with establishing the boundaries of the object language, with particular attention to Creoles and signed languages. The chapter details the problems that such difficulties pose to dictionaries of foreignisms. We conclude with an exploration of how language contact can and should inform the future of dictionary creation.

Intellectual history and lexicography are related to each other in multiple ways. Intellectual historians study dictionary entries as documents of the thought – for instance, the political thought – of the past. They may also attend to broader questions of dictionary structure: how did a given lexicographer think about taxonomy? Sometimes lexicographers themselves construct dictionaries as contributions to intellectual history. And the history of dictionaries is part of the history of intellectual institutions (publishing houses, universities and academies, religious bodies, and so on), which have regularly determined the scale, the metalanguage, the degree of encyclopedic content, and the relationship to canons of literature, of the lexicographical work which they sponsored. These points have very wide-ranging implications: dictionaries ultimately belong to a global intellectual history.

We present a semantic and textual analysis of the first two chapters of the Wealth of Nations to elucidate the meaning of several of Adam Smith’s key ideas. Using the methodology of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage, we produce semantic explications of some of Adam Smith’s fundamental principles of economics phrased in simple and cross-translatable words. The extracts from the original text function as textual evidence and conceptual reference for the explications we present. We demonstrate that: (i) by reducing the principles as conceived by Smith to their core meanings, it is possible to resolve some interpretive ambiguities for general readers of economics, and (ii) by producing explications that are clear, cross-translatable, and free from terminological ethnocentrism, these principles become accessible and maximally intelligible to twenty-first-century readers who are nonexperts in economics and nonnative speakers of English, too. Ultimately, our project re-humanizes economics as a study of the human condition by drilling down to the core of what Adam Smith the moral philosopher meant in his most famous book that founded a discipline.

Im/Politeness Research is already a well stablished research field which offers interesting insights for the analysis of Ancient Greek and Latin texts, and the interpersonal dynamics of the societies that spoke those languages throughout time. This chapter gives a broad and accesible overview of the history of Im/Politeness Research, including its origins, the main stages of its development, its key concepts and methods and the current research trends. It also discusses the tools of Conversation Analysis and their possible contribution to our understanding of im/politeness, includuing the ways this methodology can help to extend the scope of study. Special emphasis is also given to the particular problems faced by classicists when examining im/politeness phenomena in ancient languages, and the ways to overcome those issues with the help of suitable methodologies. Finally, the chapter presents the structure and contents of the rest of the volume.

Verbal silence is examined and illustrated in light of the communicative functions it serves and the cooperative maxims it fulfils. Our starting point is Jakobson’s (1960) model. Each of Jakobson’s six functions (the referential function, emotive, conative, phatic, poetic and metalinguistic) is considered here in terms of the manner in which it is served by verbal silence in general, and particularly by iconic depictions of absences and presences (such as trauma or the shortage of words) as well as communicative events in which verbal silence is the unmarked means fulfilling the communicative function (such as in turn switching and the expression of threats). In addition to illuminating the functions served by verbal silence, this examination also contributes to the discovery of the circumstantial function overlooked by Jakobson and to the refinement of broadly studied linguistic issues such as the distinction between questions cooperatively answered in silence and rhetorical questions and the fundamental difference in terms of the function of silence between silence as consent and the right to silence. The unique pragmatic quality of verbal silence to activate the addressee moving hem to the addresser’s position is discussed and illustrated throughout our discussion of the communicative functions played by verbal silence.

Modern linguists, like the hermeneuticists before them, insist that language is an autonomous, self-contained system, a module, in which components, whether phonological, semantic, or grammatical, are represented in terms of each other – /b/ differs from /p/ by a single feature “voiced”; bachelor differs from male adult by the feature “married,” and so on (Jackendoff, 2002). As Saussure (1958) put it, “In language there are only differences.” Although, in humans, learning a language appears to also depend on knowledge of the world of reference, what is learned is a language, “an autonomous system existing in the mind” (Katz & Fodor, 1963). These linguistic structures – technically “semantic structures” or Fregean senses, are the meanings in the language that exist quite independently of the ways that those semantic structures refer to the world. Thus, senses are not merely signs; they are meanings defined in terms of each other – dog as an animal, green as a color, up as opposed to down, and so on.

This chapter looks at the methodology for dealing with paradoxes vianonclassical logic. Some standard approaches by Field, Beall, andPriest (among others) are considered and found unsatisfactory forrelying on classical logic in the “metatheory.” Theidea of paraconsistency as a universal logic is suggested instead,and the main challenge for this approach is presented: the“Feferman objection” that nonclassical logics cannotdo mathematics. This leads to a discussion of “classicalrecapture” and mathematical revisionism. The plan for using aparaconsistent “metalanguage” is outlined, the“just true” challenge is dismissed, and the goals forthe approach are laid out – namely, to develop enoughmathematics to establish the paradoxes from Chapter 1.

Chapter 10 begins with two illustrations of the multifunctionality of general extenders in extracts from American English and Parisian French. Some relevant examples are presented and discussed to show that the structural position of general extenders is not necessarily utterance-final. In English, they can even be part of the subject noun phrase and, in other languages, they are often positioned inside utterances. In a function hitherto undocumented in English, some adjunctive forms are analyzed as associative plurals, used to reference a group of people associated with a particular individual as a focal referent. In a suggested area for further research, a substantial number of extender-type phrases with -else, previously unanalyzed, are illustrated and discussed. Another area where further research is encouraged is the investigation of the role of adjunctive forms in list completion with a much broader perspective than in earlier research.

Chapter 4 focuses on the uses of general extenders that are speaker-oriented, representing the speaker’s point of view, or the personal function, also known as subjectivity. They are also described as stance markers when used to express personal feelings, attitudes and evaluations. Clear examples of this function can be found in those adjunctive phrases with pejorative terms as proforms. Other notable examples involve extended descriptions that seem excessive, yet iconically represent an excess of work or problems. Speakers can also use some adjunctive forms to indicate that they think the accompanying information isextreme in some way or, within a formulaic construction, to express an idea that is unexpected. The disjunctive form or anything can be used to express the minimum expected and is the typical phrase used in a formulaic disclaimer. The different origins and functions of Whatever and or whatever are described and, along with some adjunctive forms used with a dismissive effect, are analyzed in terms of metapragmatic awareness.

This chapter deals with the status of meaning-generating processes, taking place in language use, in relation to human cognition. A basic assumption is that reflexive or metalinguistic awareness is one of the original evolutionary prerequisites for the development of human language, and that it plays a central role in all instances of producing and interpreting utterances. The chapter reviews the ways in which metalinguistic activity types and indicators of reflexive awareness have been accounted for in the past. It explores the relevance of the topic for a pragmatic understanding of social interaction, with special attention for cross-linguistic variability (and hence with implications for intercultural communication). Finally, it reflects on methodological problems involved in the study of the phenomena at hand, and perspectives for future research are briefly sketched.

This chapter investigates the nature and use of terminology in language teaching and asks why many teachers are wary of it. A number of important distinctions are introduced: between terminology (the technical vocabulary) and metalanguage (all language about language), between scientific and pedagogic terminology, and between transparent, opaque and iconic terms. The pros and cons of using terminology in the classroom are then discussed, with a consensus for its limited and appropriate use being proposed. Based on the author’s own research, problems such as the overuse of terminology, its inconsistent use in textbooks, and the proliferation of confusing and synonymous terms are confronted.