Software and the future of programming languages

Although software is the key enabler of the global information infrastructure, the amount and extent of software in use in the world today are not widely understood, nor are the programming languages and paradigms that have been used to create the software. The vast size of the embedded base of existing software and the increasing costs of software maintenance, poor security, and limited functionality are posing significant challenges for the software R&D community.     

Farmers and their languages: the first expansions

The largest movements and replacements of human populations since the end of the Ice Ages resulted from the geographically uneven rise of food production around the world. The first farming societies thereby gained great advantages over hunter-gatherer societies. But most of those resulting shifts of populations and languages are complex, controversial, or both. We discuss the main complications and specific examples involving 15 language families. Further progress will depend on interdisciplinary research that combines archaeology, crop and livestock studies, physical anthropology, genetics, and linguistics.     

Kinship categories across languages reflect general communicative principles

Languages vary in their systems of kinship categories, but the scope of possible variation appears to be constrained. Previous accounts of kin classification have often emphasized constraints that are specific to the domain of kinship and are not derived from general principles. Here, we propose an account that is founded on two domain-general principles: Good systems of categories are simple, and they enable informative communication. We show computationally that kin classification systems in the world's languages achieve a near-optimal trade-off between these two competing principles. We also show that our account explains several specific constraints on kin classification proposed previously. Because the principles of simplicity and informativeness are also relevant to other semantic domains, the trade-off between them may provide a domain-general foundation for variation in category systems across languages.     

译介语言的文化魅力和商业价值

20世纪是文化大碰撞、大融合的世纪 ,中外文化进行了前所未有的接触和交流。尤其是正在实现现代转型的中国社会 ,市场经济带来了人们生活观念、生活方式等的相应转变。消费行为正在从农业经济、工业经济时期较单一的实用性消费向知识经济时代丰富多彩的文化消费、审美消费过渡和提升。2 1世纪世界文化的多元并存格局更使得中外文化交流渗透到了政治、经济等各个领域。随着知识经济时代信息技术和高科技的迅速发展 ,其微观组织、生产、消费、生活方式等都在发生新的变化。面对世界文化的多元语境和科技进步的新形势 ,中国传统文化一方面受到…     

浅析破折号在英、汉两种语言中的运用

标点符号在书面表达中起了很大作用,就破折号进行探讨,重点对破折号在汉、英两种语言中所起的作用进行了比较．     

美国英语与美国人的时间观

语言作为文化的一部分，是文化的重要表达形式，透过一个民族的语言层面，可以窥见这个民族的文化形态。本文试图通过分析美国英语与时间有关的用语，来探讨美国人支配、利用时间的方式，以及时间这一无声的语言在美国文化中所蕴含的意义     

美利坚民族精神与美语词汇

通过对美国外来词汇引进的描述和分析,主要论述了美利坚民族精神对美语词汇的影响。这一研究旨在进一步揭示美国文化与美国英语之间的关系,在美国英语较为盛行的全球化时代,对该问题的研究有助于加深对美国语言文化的了解。美利坚民族的包容精神使美国人能从其它语言中引进大量词汇,从而极大地增加了美国英语的词汇量并丰富了美国人的表达方式;而美利坚民族的创新精神又使美语词汇得到极大的革新,从而使其新颖、特别,有别于英式英语。     

涉身语言认知理论与英语教学初探

涉身语言认知思想是认知语言学上的一种创新。针对传统认知语言学"语言内在论"和"天赋论"等理论的局限性,以拉可夫和约翰逊为代表的涉身语言认知思想,从身体维度对语言认知机制给予了新的解读。这种以"大脑、身体和环境"共同参与的语言的认知模式对当前我国的英语教学和改革具有重要的理论指导意义,能够为解决当前高校英语教学和改革中出现的新问题给予方法论的指导。