This book is about Tangut translations of Chinese literary texts. Although most of the extant Tangut material comprises Buddhist texts, there are also many non-religious texts, which are mostly translations from Chinese. The central concern is how the Tanguts appropriated Chinese written culture through translation and what their reasons for this were. Of the seven chapters, the first three pro…
This book investigates the nature of regional variation in the early Chinese writing system through bamboo manuscripts and inscriptions dating from the late pre-imperial China (5th-3rd centuries BCE). Diachronic and synchronic comparisons of graphic details show that none of the well-recognized regional varieties developed independently from one another. Furthermore, differences in graphic comp…
This book offers a diversification model of transplanted languages that facilitates the exploration of external factors and internal changes. The general context is the New World and the variety that unfolded in the Central Highlands and the Gulf of Mexico, herein identified as Mexican Colonial Spanish (MCS). Linguistic corpora provide the evidence of (re)transmission, diffusion, metalinguistic…
This open access book provides an overview of the recent advances in representation learning theory, algorithms and applications for natural language processing (NLP). It is divided into three parts. Part I presents the representation learning techniques for multiple language entries, including words, phrases, sentences and documents. Part II then introduces the representation techniques for th…
This first book provides a comprehensive overview of the different levels of players who have been involved in both intended and unintended language planning and policy, and shows how they have impacted multilingual language use. Specifically, it looks at the roles of different ‘glo-national’ (global national) players in directing the choices of language use in various parts of the world. D…
This monograph analyzes an innovative approach to teaching English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in tertiary education. This "constructivist blended learning approach" is based on students "constructing" for themselves their own knowledge and professional communication skills in English by making extensive use of Internet sites in English, combining traditional in-class learning with in- and out-…
The history of the novel is also a history of shifting views of the value of novel reading. This study investigates how novels themselves participate in this development by featuring reading as a multidimensional cultural practice. English novels about obsessive reading, written in times of medial transition, serve as test cases for a model that brings together analyses of form and content.
Transnational Literate Lives in Digital Times is a book-length project designed to document how people outside and within the United States take up digital literacies and fold them into the fabric of their daily lives. This research contributes to our knowledge of the impact of digital media on literate practices and also provides a basis for developing approaches for studying and teaching succ…
Despite its centrality to much of contemporary personal and public discourse, sexuality remains infrequently discussed in composition courses and in our discipline at large. Moreover, its complicated relationship to discourse, to the very language we use to describe and define our worlds, is woefully understudied in our discipline. Talk and writing about sexuality surround us. Not only does the…
"The Quechan are a Yuman people who have traditionally lived along the lower part of the Colorado River in California and Arizona. They are well known as warriors, artists, and traders, and they also have a rich oral tradition. The stories in this volume were told by tribal elders in the 1970s and early 1980s. The eleven narratives in this volume take place at the beginning of time and introduc…