Phraseology and culture in English / edited by Paul Skandera.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Skandera, Paul.

Series:

Topics in English linguistics ; 54.

Topics in English linguistics, 1434-3452 ; 54

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English language--Social aspects--English-speaking countries.

English language.

Language and culture--English-speaking countries.

Language and culture.

English language--Variation.

Linguistic geography.

Group identity--English-speaking countries.

Group identity.

English-speaking countries--Civilization.

English-speaking countries.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (524 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, c2007.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The proposition that there is a correlation between language and culture or culture-specific ways of thinking can be traced back to the views of Herder and von Humboldt in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It is generally accepted today that a language, especially its lexicon, influences its speakers' cultural patterns of thought and perception in various ways, for example through a culture-specific segmentation of the extralinguistic reality, the frequency of occurrence of particular lexical items, or the existence of keywords or key word combinations revealing core cultural values. The aim of this volume is to explore the cultural dimension of a wide range of preconstructed or semi-preconstructed word combinations in English. The 17 papers of the volume are divided into four sections, focusing on particular lexemes (e.g. enjoy and its collocates), types of word combinations (e.g. proverbs and similes), use-related varieties (such as the language of tourism or answering-machine messages), and user-related varieties (such as Aboriginal English or African English). The sections are preceded by a prologue, tracing the development of the study of formulaic language, and followed by an epilogue, which draws together the threads laid out in the various papers. The relation between language and culture in general has been explored in a number of important works over the past ten years. However, the study of the relation between English phraseology and culture in particular has been largely neglected. This volume is the first book-length publication devoted entirely to this topic.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Developments in the study of formulaic language since 1970: A personal view

Reasonably well: Natural Semantic Metalanguage as a tool for the study of phraseology and its cultural underpinnings

Australian perceptions of the weekend: Evidence from collocations and elsewhere

Enjoy!: The (phraseological) culture of having fun

Hot, heiß, and gorjachij: A case study of collocations in English, German, and Russian

Collections of proverbs and proverb dictionaries: Some historical observations on what s in them and what s not (with a note on current genderedŽ proverbs)

Yankee wisdom: American proverbs and the worldview of New England

Similes and other evaluative idioms in Australian English

Definitely maybe: Modality clusters and politeness in spoken discourse

Lexical developments in greenspeaking

The phraseology of tourism: A central lexical field and its cultural construction

Idiomaticity in a cultural and activity type perspective: The conventionalization of routine phrases in answering-machine messages

Greetings as an act of identity in Tristan da Cunha English: From individual to social significance?

Multiword units in Aboriginal English: Australian cultural expression in an adopted language

Fixed expressions as manifestations of cultural conceptualizations: Examples from African varieties of English

Varieties of English around the world: Collocational and cultural profiles

Formulaic language in cultural perspective

Backmatter

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786612194221

9781282194229

1282194224

9783110197860

3110197863

OCLC:

290492585