This book argues that language is a network of concepts which in turn is part of the general cognitive network of the mind. It challenges the widely-held view that language is an innate mental module with its own special internal organization. It shows that language has the same internal organization as other areas of knowledge such as social relations and action schemas, and reveals the rich links between linguistic elements and contextual categories. Professor Hudson presents a new theory of how (...) we learn and use our knowledge of language. He puts this to work in a series of extended explorations of morphology, syntax, semantics, and sociolinguistics. Every step of his argument and exposition is illustrated with examples, including the kind mainstream theory finds it hard to analyse. He introduces the latest version of his influential theory of Word Grammar and shows how it can be used to explain the operations of language and as a key to understanding the associated operations of the mind. (shrink)

Word grammar is a theory of language structure and is based on the assumption that language, and indeed the whole of knowledge, is a network, and that virtually all of knowledge is learned. It combines the psychological insights of cognitive linguistics with the rigour of more formal theories. This textbook spans a broad range of topics from prototypes, activation and default inheritance to the details of syntactic, morphological and semantic structure. It introduces elementary ideas from cognitive science and uses them (...) to explain the structure of language including a survey of English grammar. (shrink)

Socially responsible investors buy financial securities with two goals: to make a market-based return, and to make companies act in a more socially responsible way. Most research on socially responsible investment deals with investing in stocks traded on major exchanges. We add the case of loaning small amounts of funds to microentrepreneurs through a discussion of a particular case. The case is that of Calmeadow which, in conjunction with the Royal Bank of Canada, set up a microlending project in rural (...) Nova Scotia (Canada). Using Hirschman’s analysis of “exit” and “voice”, we show that while socially responsible investors may make market-based returns for their investments in stocks traded on major exchanges, they have no effect on corporate behaviour because their action consists of exit, and they are easily replaced by other investors. They attain their first goal but not their second. On the other hand, in the Calmeadow/Royal Bank of Canada case, we see that those who lend money to microenterprises can more easily use voice. The relative power difference between the lender and the microentrepreneur enables the lender to make the microentrepreneur act in a more socially responsible way, although only marginally. But because of the market imperfections existing in this case (the very high transactions costs associated with administering small loans), the lender concluded it could not attain a market rate of return. In this case, then, the lender attained its second goal but not its first. (shrink)

This paper puts forward the case for university research ethics committees to coordinate universities' efforts to foster research ethics in its broadest sense–ethics and integrity–and to foster it proactively and positively.

It is now nearly twenty years since Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structures appeared, and during these twenty years many things have changed in linguistics—not least, the interest that the rest of the world now takes in what we linguists do. The reason for this is clearly because Chomsky claimed to have discovered a window into the human mind, via the study of the structure of languages. The argument is a simple one: a linguist can write a grammar for a language, with (...) some degree of confidence that his grammar is the “ right “ one for that language, but since the language only exists in the heads of its speakers until linguists or other grammar-writers come along, the grammar that he has written must correspond in some direct sense, and in detail, to the knowledge that exists in the speaker's mind. Therefore, in order to study that particular part of our minds, all we need to do is to write grammars, making sure that they are right, of course, and then study the grammars instead. “We can also compare the grammars for radically different languages and see to what extent they are similar or different, and then draw conclusions about general properties of all human beings’ minds— and we can even speculate as to how our minds have developed that way, whether by genetic programming or by other means. It is no wonder that linguists are not the only people who think linguistics is important. (shrink)

This paper investigates the interpretation of Corporate Social Responsibility found in reports by corporations. Data was collected from websites of Canadiancorporations figuring in the S&P/TSX 60 stock market index. Following some simple descriptions of the reports, three brief analyses are conducted. First the structure of the reports is analyzed. Then word use is investigated. Finally the use of pictures in the reports is analyzed.

Kinship systems are best explained functionally, in terms of the conflicting needs of the society concerned, rather than in terms of universal constraints, whether Optimality Theory or other; but OT is particularly unsuitable as it rules out taxonomies. A conceptual analysis of kinship terminology shows, not that extends to kinship, but that general cognition has the formal power to handle grammar.