Bert Cornillie

Costas Canakis

Angeliki Athanasiadou

Subjectification is a widespread phenomenon and has emerged as a most pervasive tendency in diachronic semantic change (Traugott) and in synchronic semantic extension (Langacker). Its importance is increasingly valued despite the fact that it is an area that has been treated differently by different scholars. One of the book's objectives is to generate a clearer understanding of the two major models of subjectivity, to see where they can meet but also where intrinsic differences present barriers to any integration. Another objective is to speculate on whether the notions of subjectivity and subjectification have reshaped our understanding of grammar. The goals of the volume are the following: The volume brings together contributions dealing with particular areas of grammar in the framework of subjectivity and subjectification. Starting with Stein and Wright's 1995 edition, publications on the specific process have broadened the scope of this research. Indeed, the question 'how far have we come?', addressed in the introduction, has become central in reaching a clearer understanding of the above framework and even expanding it. Individual papers explore not only wider questions and implications on the theoretical status of subjectivity and subjectification in language, but are empirically supported by thorough and extensive data from different languages (Asian languages, German, Spanish, Greek, Dutch, English). These studies of particular areas of grammar (modals, adjectives) or of levels of analysis (syntax) can help implement or adapt the existing accounts of subjectivity made in the literature. The challenge for every single paper is to show whether the two major approaches (Langacker's and Traugott's) can possibly be integrated or whether they are fundamentally different. The papers also investigate into the questions whether we have a continuum from highly subjective to more objective, whether subjective need be opposed to objective, or whether subjective may also be understood in contrast to neutral (which is often the case in Traugott's examples of grammaticalization). Furthermore, the issue of intersubjectivity, i.e., putting the addressee's perspective onstage, is also discussed.

Various Paths to Subjectivity

Subjectification

Venetia Kantsa

Kostas Yiannakopoulos

This volume is a collection of papers on aspects of language and sexuality as understood and problematized by scholars in linguistics and anthropology. The idea behind this volume was to bring together people working on language-and-sexuality issues from within these two fields given that linguistic research on this topic is, more often than not, fieldwork-related and anthropological research characteristically focuses on issues of sexual onomasiology and semasiology, a concomitant of its preoccupation with social categories and categorization. This endeavor is in many respects a continuation of the discussion on the social constitution of gender while following up on a slowly but steadily growing tradition of research on language and sexuality, both in relation to gender and beyond it. Although gender and sexuality may be thought of as distinct, in principle, they interact not only in the framework provided by heteronormativity, but also in contexts where their presupposed alignment is questioned, if not summarily rebuked. Therefore, if there is, indeed, something to be said about language and sexuality beyond gender, any such discussion will also have to go through it. On the other hand, work on gendered language will have to co-estimate the findings of research on language-and-sexuality. Contributors in this volume have assumed a variety of theoretical positions from which to tackle their diverse topics, covering a wide range of sexually relevant language pertaining to heterosexual, lesbian, gay, and queer experience but also to voice, silence, the unconscious, and nationalism. Issues of identities and desires inevitably take center stage in many of the papers, reflecting dominant theoretical approaches and tensions in the field, even as authors may remain skeptical of the usefulness of the ensuing polarizations. At the same time, the polyphony envisioned by the editors and contributors in this volume will be operative in the ongoing critical appraisal of theoretical stances towards the intricate indexical relation between language, gender, and sexuality.

Costas Canakis

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