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38615 results in Cambridge Textbooks

Page 1298 of 1931

  • 12 - Perspectives on Geographical Variation

    • By Merja Stenroos, Department of Cultural Studies and Languages at the University of Stavanger, Norway.
  • Edited by Laurel J. Brinton, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
  • Book:
    English Historical Linguistics
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    03 July 2017, pp 303-331

  • Summary

    Studying Variation

    Variation in the Present and Past

    Human language is, and always has been, variable. It is characterized, in the words of the linguist William Kretzschmar, by “extensive (really massive) variation in all features at all times” (2009: 3). This variability has functions that seem to be fundamental to human communication: the messages we convey depend not just on what we say, but how we say it. How we speak reflects who we are and where we belong, or would like to belong. It also reflects each situation, our purposes, roles, and attitudes.

    The most obvious variation, that of which everyone is aware, has to do with geography. People speak differently in different places; and the differences generally grow with distance. Geographical variation – differences between “dialects” – was also the first kind of linguistic variation to be systematically studied, and dialectology remained for a long time the only discipline that studied linguistic variation. More recently, approaches such as sociolinguistics and pragmatics have come to focus on other kinds of variation. Sociolinguists study variation in relation to a wide range of variables, such as age, gender, social class, and ethnic and religious background; both sociolinguists and pragmaticists are concerned with different styles and domains, and pragmaticists are in particular interested in the different functions and uses of linguistic variants, such as politeness or insult (see Chapters 9 and 10).

    Geographical and social variation were for a long time studied separately. Most early sociolinguistic studies focused on communities within large cities (as is reflected in the early term “urban dialectology”) where geographical variation was not particularly relevant. Dialectology, on the other hand, tended to have an “antiquarian” interest: to record traditional dialectal forms before they died out, rather than to study the full scale of actual variation.

    This division has now to a large extent disappeared. Sociolinguistic studies routinely take geography into account, and dialectology has become informed by insights both from sociolinguistics and from human geography. Dialectal variation is no longer seen only as a matter of physical distance: rather, it is a question of distance in terms of contact.

  • 21 - Plastics and Shaping of Plastics

  • H. S. Shan, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee
  • Book:
    Manufacturing Processes
    Published online:
    27 June 2025
    Print publication:
    03 July 2017, pp 460-502

  • Summary

    The word ‘plastics’ is mostly used as a synonym for ‘polymers', although plastics constitute only a subset of polymeric materials. In fact, the word plastic is from the Greek word plastikos which means ‘able to be moulded and shaped'. Plastics can be moulded, cast, formed, machined and joined by welding operations. They have many unique and diverse useful properties due to which they are increasingly replacing metals and alloys for manufacturing of components that are used in a wide range of applications.

  • 3 - Expendable Mould Casting Processes

  • H. S. Shan, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee
  • Book:
    Manufacturing Processes
    Published online:
    27 June 2025
    Print publication:
    03 July 2017, pp 31-81

  • Summary

    The casting processes which use expendable moulds can be grouped into two categories:

    • 1. Casting processes that employ multiple-use patterns: Under this category, the main casting processes are as follows:

    • • Sand mould casting and its variants like Green-sand mould casting, skin-dried sand mould casting, dry-sand mould casting, sodium silicate bonded sand mould casting and shell mould casting

    • • Plaster mould casting

    • • Ceramic mould casting

    • 2. Casting processes that employ single-use patterns: Under this category, the main casting processes are as follows

    • • Investment casting

    • • Full-mould casting

  • 3 - Generative Approaches

  • Edited by Laurel J. Brinton, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
  • Book:
    English Historical Linguistics
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    03 July 2017, pp 42-69

  • Summary

    Introduction

    William Shakespeare and his contemporaries of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century wrote sentences like these:

  • (1) a. for the eye sees not itself / But by reflection (Julius Caesar I.ii.52)

  • b. What means this shouting? I do fear, the people Choose Caesar for their king. (Julius Caesar I.ii.79–80)

    • We can still understand such sentences, but these two examples illustrate three instances of syntax that is no longer normal in Present-day English. To start with, sentence negation is no longer expressed by placing the negator not after a main verb. Today, we can only place a negator after an auxiliary verb, as in the eye cannot see itself, a sentence which Shakespeare could also have written. Similarly, we need an auxiliary to form the question of (1b), turning it into What does this shouting mean? And rather surprisingly, given that he could leave out auxiliaries where modern-day speakers need one, Shakespeare could use an auxiliary where we could not – I do fear could indeed be uttered today, but only in emphatic speech, as in I do not fear that Brutus will betray Caesar, but I DO fear that the people will choose Caesar for their king.

    Although we cannot assume that people in Tudor England produced speeches exactly like Shakespeare's in their everyday language, we can assume that these particular constructions reflected syntactic possibilities in more pedestrian spoken language. The essence of the generative approach to analyzing linguistic change between period A and period B is to make a formal and explicit description of the differences between the internalized grammar of a speaker of stage A and that of a speaker of stage B.

    Generative theory is primarily focused on synchronic analysis, and shifts in the treatment of changes such as those illustrated by the sentences of (1) reflect developments in the synchronic theory. However, diachronic generative linguists assume that the results of their studies can help shape synchronic theory as well as elucidate the history of a given language and add more generally to our understanding of how languages change. As we'll see below, it has been argued that a single change in a hypothesized parameter setting between Shakespeare's period and later led to a cluster of apparently unrelated changes, including the loss of a speaker's ability to produce questions and negatives without an auxiliary.

  • 11 - Perspectives on Standardization: From Codification to Prescriptivism

  • Edited by Laurel J. Brinton, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
  • Book:
    English Historical Linguistics
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    03 July 2017, pp 276-302

  • Summary

    Introduction

    In 2014, a new edition came out of Sir Ernest Gowers’ Plain Words: A Guide to the Use of English, originally published in 1948. Gowers (1880–1966) was a civil servant, and the new edition was produced by his great-granddaughter, the novelist Rebecca Gowers. Plain Words is a usage guide, a manual on how to use language correctly. Originally written for civil servants like Gowers himself, Plain Words became hugely popular. But the work is neither the first of its kind nor unique in history: English usage guides originated during the second half of the eighteenth century, and their popularity has increased enormously, particularly during the end of the twentieth century and the beginning the twenty-first, despite the fact that there are already very many of them. There is clearly a market for usage guides.

    Such a market was already growing in England during the second half of the eighteenth century, though at first this new demand led to the publication of grammars, more than ever before. In some countries, grammars and usage guides, but also dictionaries, are published by an academy, an authoritative institution that is officially responsible for the regulation of the language. The best-known example is the Académie française, founded in 1635, but Spain has a language academy too, and so does the Netherlands, but it regulates Dutch spelling only. For English there has never been an academy, though at the beginning of the eighteenth century England came very close to having one. Instead of officially sanctioned publications, English grammars, dictionaries and usage guides came to be produced by individuals, writers from different backgrounds but all of them interested in language, often encouraged by publishers with an eye for the market.

    Usage guides are neither grammars nor dictionaries because they deal with all aspects of language: pronunciation, spelling, vocabulary, grammar, and style. They originate from“normative grammars” like the one by the clergyman Robert Lowth (1710–1787), which presents a norm of correctness for those wishing to speak and write correctly. One of the reasons Lowth's Short Introduction to English Grammar (1762) was so popular was that it had a chapter on syntaxwith numerous footnotes criticizing the grammatical mistakes of famous English writers.

  • 4 - Permanent Mould Casting Processes

  • H. S. Shan, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee
  • Book:
    Manufacturing Processes
    Published online:
    27 June 2025
    Print publication:
    03 July 2017, pp 82-107

  • Summary

    One thing common among all the expendable mould casting processes described in the previous chapter is that all of them require a new mould for every casting. Such a wasteful proposition is acceptable if only a limited number of identical parts are to be produced; but when parts are required in large quantities, great savings can be made and are actually made by using moulds that are re-usable again and again, that is, permanent moulds, or dies.

    The question arises as to what the permanent mould should be made of so that it is able to withstand the melting point of metals. For casting of non-ferrous metals and cast iron (melting point up to 1200°C), we use dies made of steel. In case of casting of cast iron, frequent smoothing (redressing) of the die profile is necessary. For casting of steels (melting point nearly 1550°C), we use graphite dies, although machining of complex profiles in graphite dies is difficult. For this reason, non-ferrous die casting is much more common than steel die casting.

  • 5 - Metal Melting, Pouring and Solidification

  • H. S. Shan, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee
  • Book:
    Manufacturing Processes
    Published online:
    27 June 2025
    Print publication:
    03 July 2017, pp 108-127

  • Summary

    Metal melting is an important activity of casting operation that directly affects the quality of castings. It is done in a furnace and there are many requirements which the furnace must meet. These are as follows:

    • 1. It should provide an adequate amount of molten metal.

    • 2. It should provide molten metal at the desired temperature.

    • 3. It should be able to hold molten metal for an extended period of time without

    • deterioration of quality.

    • 4. It should not pollue the environment.

    • 5. It should be economical to operate and maintain. Foundries use many types of furnaces – pit furnace, open hearth furnace, arc furnace, induction furnace, cupola furnace and so on.

  • 4 - Psycholinguistic Perspectives

  • Edited by Laurel J. Brinton, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
  • Book:
    English Historical Linguistics
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    03 July 2017, pp 70-95

  • Summary

    Introduction

    To most of you, it will not be immediately obvious why a textbook on English historical linguistics should contain a chapter on psycholinguistics. What do the two have to do with one another? Historical linguistics is the study of how languages change in the long term, over many generations of speakers, while psycholinguistics is concerned with the cognitive processes that take place when an individual speaker produces or processes language. It could thus be argued that historical linguists look at language at the level of entire linguistic communities, while psycholinguists try to understand how language works in the mind of a single human being. Against this dichotomy, this chapter will make the case that historical linguistics and psycholinguistics are much more deeply connected than it might initially appear. The centerpiece of that argument is the observation that language gradually changes in the long term simply because individual speakers in the here-and-now process it when they communicate. This idea was formulated in the nineteenth century by the historical linguist Hermann Paul:

    The changes in language fulfil themselves in the individual, partly through his spontaneous activity, by means of speaking and thinking in the forms of language, and partly through the influence which each individual receives from others. A change in linguistic usage can hardly be brought about without the co-operation of both. (1891: 15)

    Comments like these make Hermann Paul an intellectual grandfather of what is nowadays called usage-based linguistics (Bybee and Hopper 2001; Bybee 2010). As the name suggests, this framework assigns a fundamental role to language use, which is seen as the basis of speakers’ knowledge of language. As you experience language in use, you retain detailed memories of that experience and build up linguistic knowledge. This knowledge is flexible, and it is continually reshaped as you encounter new uses of language. This means that over time, your knowledge of language changes. With it changes your language production, which in turn influences the linguistic knowledge of the speakers around you. Through repeated cycles of small changes in usage, languages can change rather dramatically in the long term.

    When language change is viewed in this way, it becomes apparent that it is closely intertwined with the psychological processes that shape language use in the here-and-now.

  • 7 - Casting Design Principles

  • H. S. Shan, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee
  • Book:
    Manufacturing Processes
    Published online:
    27 June 2025
    Print publication:
    03 July 2017, pp 147-160

  • Summary

    The basic features of a casting system are shown in Figure 7.1. As the molten metal is poured into the pouring basin, it flows through the other parts of the gating system (sprue, runner and gates) and finally fills the mould cavity. The design of the gating system should ensure the following:

    • • The necessary amount of molten metal is able to flow through the system.

    • • The flow of molten metal into the mould cavity is at an appropriate speed and nonturbulent.

    • • While flowing through the gating system, the molten metal

  • 2 - Introduction to Metal Casting

  • H. S. Shan, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee
  • Book:
    Manufacturing Processes
    Published online:
    27 June 2025
    Print publication:
    03 July 2017, pp 18-30

  • Summary

    A component can be generally produced by several manufacturing processes, each offering its own advantages and limitations; the challenge lies in selecting the most economical and suitable process for a given component. Casting is one of the oldest and most popular methods of producing metallic products, whereby liquid metal is poured into a cavity known as the mould, and allowed to solidify and cool. The casting thus produced is almost an exact replica of the mould. This casting is cleaned and, if required, machined to the desired dimensions. Moulds are generally prepared in sand but can just as easily be made of metals or non-metals.

  • 1 - Introduction to Manufacturing Processes

  • H. S. Shan, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee
  • Book:
    Manufacturing Processes
    Published online:
    27 June 2025
    Print publication:
    03 July 2017, pp 1-17

  • Summary

    The term manufacture, first coined during the 1560s, is derived from two Latin words manus (hand) and factus (make). Meaning ‘made by hand', this term describes the fabrication methods that were used in earlier times. Today, most manufacturing operations are, however, accomplished by mechanized and automated equipment under human supervision. In simpler terms, manufacturing can be considered as the process of converting materials into products by combining one material with an other, or by changing their shape, properties and/or appearance with the application of physical and chemical processes.

    Manufacturing has always been important to humans. From the technological point of view, manufacturing is significant as the principles of science are applied to create and provide all the necessary goods and products for society. From the point of view of economics also, manufacturing is vital since it adds value to materials by changing their size, shape and properties.

  • 6 - Approaches to Grammaticalization and Lexicalization

  • Edited by Laurel J. Brinton, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
  • Book:
    English Historical Linguistics
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    03 July 2017, pp 131-157

  • Summary

    Introduction

    Grammaticalization has without a doubt become one of the most productive frameworks for studying diachronic change as well as synchronic variation in language, especially within functional-cognitive linguistics and a usage-based approach. As a framework it has evolved both in terms of the topics studied and its methodology. Grammaticalization has been defined in many different ways, both narrowly as ‘a process that makes lexical or less grammatical units or constructions, more grammatical,’ or more broadly as a ‘change that creates grammar’ or simply ‘grammatical change’ as such. Consequently, different characteristics have been argued to be essential for this type of change and different concrete developments have been labeled “grammaticalization.” Its relation to lexicalization is complex and has been described in various ways, reflecting the wide variety of definitions of the latter. Lexicalization in a fairly general sense refers to the process that leads to new conventionalized lexical items, phrases, or idioms. However, maybe even more so than grammaticalization, the term has been used to encompass conceptually rather disparate phenomena. It need not always involve a diachronic dimension, for instance when it pertains to how more abstract notions, such as motion, manner, and space, are lexicalized, i.e., expressed, in English for instance by such verbs as float, stumble, or swim.

    Grammaticalization and lexicalization have been described as being completely opposite types of changes, but also as being orthogonal, distinct processes that may intersect or occur in sequence. Confusion about the nature of grammaticalization, lexicalization, and their relationship to a large extent arises from the various ways in which the lexicon and grammar and their relationship have been defined.

    Because of the prolific output of research within these frameworks any introduction to either grammaticalization or lexicalization is necessarily incomplete. This chapter is hence restricted to discussing the main approaches to grammaticalization and lexicalization studies and the changes in focus that they have gone through.

    Approaches to Grammaticalization

    In this chapter we will restrict ourselves to the narrow sense of grammaticalization, which refers to a specific type of language change in which lexical material develops a more grammatical function and status, and already grammatical material develops more grammatical functions. Such an approach incorporates “unidirectionality,” predicting that grammatical constructions typically have lexical origins, whereas the opposite, lexical items having grammatical origins, is dramatically less common (see below on degrammaticalization).

  • 8 - Discourse-based Approaches

  • Edited by Laurel J. Brinton, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
  • Book:
    English Historical Linguistics
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    03 July 2017, pp 185-217

  • Summary

    Introduction

    Consider the following two text-initial passages:

  • a. fire nut caged a psychopath was jailed for life yesterday for killing a mother and her two kids by torching their home. (2000 Sun; Rostock Newspaper Corpus)

  • b. One of the things we celebrate as we gather forworship week by week is God's ability to bring good out of evil.We often have to do so, don't we, in the teeth ofmuch evidence to the contrary. Evidence that God has lost the plot, as it were. For, as we look around our world we see a neverending catalogue of headline-grabbing events which, again and again, spell bad news. (c. 2000 David Stone; see Claridge and Wilson 2000)

    • We recognize these texts more or less immediately for what they are, i.e., what genres they represent, and to which larger discoursal and social contexts they belong – namely, newspaper reportage and a sermon, respectively. We can do this because texts consist of features that are not only functional, but also conventional, and because we have acquired textual competence by growing up in a given culture. Even with altered layout, the news report headline (with characteristic ellipsis; cf. was/has been caged) and the following lead, referring to the major journalistic questions in a nutshell (who, when, what, why), are probably easily recognizable as typical genre features of (1a). Similarly, the sermon beginning (1b), which we recognize by the reference to the communicative situation (gather for worship) and the topic (God), contains interactive features (the pronoun we, the tag question don't we, colloquial expressions such as lost the plot) typical of face-to-face communication. Now look at beginnings of the “same” discourse of earlier times for a contrast:

  • a. Newcastle, Dec. 29. Thursday arrived here, by the London Waggon, the Arms for the Northumberland Militia. (1760 London Evening Post; Rostock Newspaper Corpus)

  • b. The eternall HappineVsse of our immortall souls is to be found only in union and communion with Iesus Christ; Religion is that which gathers and binds up the spirit to close fellowship with Him; … “ (RelA1642; Lampeter Corpus)

    • (2a) contains neither a proper headline (but a dateline instead) nor a lead. While (1a) is followed by a report that spells out the lead in more detail, the older news text continues with different information on unrelated company movements and officer deaths (not cited here).

  • 9 - Sociohistorical Approaches

  • Edited by Laurel J. Brinton, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
  • Book:
    English Historical Linguistics
    Published online:
    06 August 2018
    Print publication:
    03 July 2017, pp 218-244

  • Summary

    Introduction

    In a witness testimony from 1714, Ralph Coleman, a London butcher, relates the following dialogue that he overheard between the Reverend Robert Barry and Sarah Twycrosse (the here unnamed “Woman”), a hostel keeper.

    … S∼ [‘Sir’] I want to speake with you, to wch [‘which’] the sd [‘said’] Robert Barry replyed, Madam, I have nothing to say to you wherto shee replyed, Sr I have something to say to you, & shall speake it in publick to wch the said Robert Barry replyed, Yes and Welcome & thereupon the said ∧﹛Woman﹜ answeared him, Why then Sr I will. The Woman that I saw in bed with you is now with Child (ETED: London 1714–1715: F_4LD_London_003)

    We will leave aside whether Coleman accurately repeated what was originally said – we will have a closer look at the issue of textual reliability later. What is particularly interesting for us in this exchange is the way Twycrosse and Barry address each other. Twycrosse uses sir three times, and Barry responds once with madam. We can assume from modern conventions of address that this usage carried important social implications. After all, in modern contexts, the choice of address term (sir, ma'am, professor, Mr., Ms., Mrs., Ralph, Sarah, idiot, etc.) sends social signals about how we relate to (or perceive our relation to) the people we address: whether we see them as socially more or less powerful than ourselves, as socially close, etc. The selection may also reflect the particular situation we find ourselves in: whether formal or informal, or perhaps whether we feel happy or displeased with a person at a particular point. In the case of the early eighteenth-century exchange above, despite making quite a grave accusation against the clergyman, Twycrosse seems to politely acknowledge the social distance between them by using sir, a term normally used for a man of higher rank at the time. On the other hand, she may be emphasizing the distance between them (considering the behavior she is accusing him of). The repeated, insistent use of sir may even carry a hint of irony: you may be a sir, but your behavior certainly does not reflect that status (intonation patterns, which we unfortunately do not have access to, would have been helpful here).

Page 1298 of 1931