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Multiple Perspectives in Linguistic Research on Baltic Languages
Editor: Aurelija Usonienė, Nicole Nau and Ineta Dabašinskienė
Date Of Publication: Apr 2012
Isbn13: 978-1-4438-3645-6
Isbn: 1-4438-3645-1
The ten contributions to this volume present original research on grammar and discourse in modern Lithuanian and Latvian. They reflect the diversity of approaches in linguistic research on Baltic languages that has developed in recent years, after a period where these languages were studied almost exclusively from the perspective of historical-comparative linguistics. Current research perspectives include, among others, perspectives from discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, language acquisition research, corpus linguistics, contrastive studies, and linguistic typology.

The studies in this volume explore new ways of describing the system and use of Latvian or Lithuanian from a synchronic, non-normative point of view. They focus on grammatical categories and constructions (modality, evidentiality, case, existential clauses), grammatical characteristics of lexical classes (reflexive verbs, numerals), the characteristics of certain forms of discourse (academic discourse, food discourse), and the effects of an ideology of “correct language” on language users.

Aurelija Usonienė is a Professor of Linguistics and Head of the Department of English Philology at Vilnius University, Lithuania. Her main areas of research are contrastive corpus-based studies, syntax-semantics interface, epistemic modality, evidentiality, and grammaticalization. Her main publications are concerned with the categories of epistemic modality, evidentiality and complementation in a cross-linguistic perspective.

Nicole Nau is a Professor of Baltic Languages and Linguistics at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. Her publications focus on the grammar of Latvian and Latgalian, language contact and areal linguistics, second language acquisition and language planning.

Ineta Dabašinskienė is a Professor of Linguistics at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania. Her research interests are related to socio- and psycholinguistics, especially to first and second language acquisition, normal and impaired language development, language use and variation.

“This book testifies to the fact that the linguistics of the Baltic languages profits again from international developments in the field, and, conversely, that linguistics gets input from the facts, often remarkable, which are observed in the Baltic languages. Thus this collection will appeal to both the specialist and the general linguist. Most of the studies collected here are corpus-based and contrastive, usually with English but also with Russian. Most studies deal with grammar and semantics (modality, evidentiality, hedging, reflexivity, numerals), and some take a sociolinguistic or discourse perspective (language planning, advertising). The book is strongest on Lithuanian, but Latvian is present with two studies. In all cases the analyses are embedded in the international research context.”

– Johan van der Auwera, University of Antwerp

“This collection of papers is an important contribution to making the modern linguistic research of the Baltic languages internationally accessible. It is valuable for the wide variety of empirical data presented, but especially due to the modern linguistic approaches employed in the individual contributions, ranging from corpus-based contrastive studies and analyses of various types of discourses up to presenting new perspectives on Baltic grammatical categories such as the Latvian oblique and reflexive verbs and the Lithuanian existential sentences. This in so many ways fascinating collection of papers should be of great interest particularly to specialists in the Baltic languages but can also be warmly recommended to anyone interested in discourse linguistics, sociolinguistics and contrastive linguistics in general.”

– Anneli Sarhimaa, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz

“This volume presents the reader with a collection of articles which are representative of contemporary studies devoted to the structural, pragmatic and sociolinguistic description of Baltic languages. It is among the first to keep up with developments in modern linguistics and their application to both Lithuanian and Latvian. It therefore fills a gap in showing how linguists both from the Baltic countries and from outside have, in recent years, started investigating these two languages from new perspectives. For this reason its contributions are of outstanding value especially for those linguists who, not necessarily being specialists in Baltic philology, are interested in cross-linguistic work involving the Baltic languages, as well as for generally interested linguists eager to receive competent and up-to-date information on these languages.”

– Björn Wiemer, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz

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