We are pleased to announce the publication of the book New trends and methodologies in applied English language research III. Synchronic and diachronic studies on discourse, lexis and grammar processing, volume 209 of Peter Lang’s series Linguistic Insights: Studies in Language and Communication. The volume has been edited by three PhD candidates of the LVTC research group, Sofía Bemposta-Rivas, Carla Bouzada-Jabois and Yolanda Fernández-Pena, in collaboration with three editors from the University of Santiago de Compostela, Tamara Bouso, Yolanda J. Calvo-Benzies and Iván Tamaredo. The volume comprises a selection of eleven papers delivered at the Fourth ELC International Postgraduate Conference on Language and Cognition (ELC4) hosted by the LVTC Research Group at the University of Vigo.
The eleven papers collected pertain to different areas of linguistics as varied as diachronic linguistics, syntax, pragmatics or psycholinguistics, and are organised into three sections. Part I comprises diachronic studies which cover from Middle English to Present-Day English and which explore phenomena such as (i) the status of extender tags such as or something or other (Alba Pérez-González), (ii) the distribution of free adjuncts and absolutes (Carla Bouzada-Jabois), (iii) Post-Auxiliary Ellipsis (Evelyn Gandón-Chapela) and (iv) the use of ‘ephemeral’ concessive adverbial subordinators such as albeit or howbeit vs. (al)though (Cristina Blanco-García). Part II contains studies on grammar and language processing which cover topics such as (i) the interaction between syntactic and structural complexity and verbal agreement with collective subjects (Yolanda Fernández-Pena), (ii) the influence of distributivity and concreteness on verbal agreement (Paula Márquez-Caamaño), (iii) the interaction of complexity and efficiency in relation to pronoun omission (Iván Tamaredo) and (iv) the methods and approaches used for grammar presentation and teaching in modern EFL/ESL textbooks (Tamilla Mammadova). Finally, Part III revolves around lexis, discourse and pragmatics, with papers that discuss issues such as (i) the temporal development of the discoursal representation of actors (Mariana Pascual); (ii) the construction of women’s gender identity through positive and negative emotions conveyed in women’s magazines (Marta Muñoz-Ramal) and (iii) spelling-to-sound correspondence in Twitter (Úrsula Kirsten-Torrado). The eleven chapters in the volume are representative of the current research that is being carried out in the fields of diachronic studies, grammar, language processing, lexis, discourse and pragmatics. Their results provide remarkable evidence and revealing insights on those disciplines that surely will open the path for further investigation into applied English language research.
