Universities, Intellectualism and Liberation
Boycott Theory for Palestine aims to advance academic boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) by presenting the fullest and most sophisticated justification for it yet given, demonstrating how the boycott relates to current debates within contemporary political and intellectual life.
This work targets students and researchers in semantics, cognitive linguistics, English, and Australian languages, focusing on the polysemy patterns of percussion/impact ('hitting') verbs in English and Warlpiri (Pama-Nyungan, Central Australia). The initial chapters introduce a novel theoretical approach to polysemy by closely examining two traditions within cognitivism: Langackerian and Lakovian Cognitive Semantics, and Wierzbickian Natural Semantic Metalanguage. The author critiques these traditions for their attempts to anchor meaning analysis in cognitive or neurological realities or in universal synonymy relations. Instead, an interpretative framework for linguistic theorizing is proposed, addressing key issues in polysemy research, including sense individuation, reference's role in linguistic categorization, and the distinction between metaphor and metonymy. Subsequent chapters provide a detailed typology of polysemous senses of percussion/impact verbs in both languages, utilizing a diachronically rich corpus of dictionary citations from Middle to contemporary English and a substantial corpus of Warlpiri citations. This typology, limited to metaphor and three metonymy categories, identifies four basic relations between extended and core meanings, allowing for a concise description of polysemy and semantic extension.
Semantics is the study of meaning in language. This clear and comprehensive textbook provides an introduction to the subject for undergraduate students. It not only equips students with the concepts they need in order to understand the main aspects of semantics, it also introduces the styles of reasoning and argument which characterise the field. It contains more than 200 exercises and discussion questions designed to test and deepen readers' understanding. More inclusive than other textbooks, it clearly explains and contrasts different theoretical approaches, summarises current debates, and provides helpful suggestions for further reading. Examples are drawn both from major world languages, such as Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Spanish and English, and from minority ones. The book also highlights the connections between semantics and the wider study of human language in psychology, anthropology, and linguistics itself.