Language Design is an academic
journal that publishes linguistic research on relevant aspects of the
design of natural languages. One of the principal objectives of
Language Design is to foment debate and to integrate knowledge about
the nature of language in general, and also the unity and diversity of
particular languages. It is hoped that this will, in turn, contribute
to a clearer and more cohesive vision of the emergence and evolution
of natural languages, as well as their relations with other aspects of
our environment.
The study of language design stems from
the belief that natural language emerges and develops as a result of
the conjunction, articulation, co-operation, and competition of
elements and pressures, which move in cycles of permanent
reorganization, and which are capable of eventually producing highly
structured codes of communication.
One of the underlying
principles of Language Design is the presupposition that the multiple
structures and linguistic features found in different languages, in
reality, constitute a set of solutions taken from a complex, though
not infinite, range of possibilities, product of the interaction,
clash, and compromise of many different types of factors (ontological,
biological, psychological, cognitive, sociocultural and historical).
Each of these factors can potentially determine design features in
language through simultaneous interaction with the competing pressures
and demands of other factors
In consonance with this, the
different languages of the world are both products and instruments,
which have emerged from the same basic conditioning and as such, are
subject to the same morpho-genetic forces. In this light, the
differences between languages are due more to the existence of a wide
range of possible variations within the basic framework of natural
language than to the pressures of economic evolution and cultural
specificity. The various systems and structures manifest in different
languages are thus variants within a very similar design process.
As a forum of debate, the aim of this journal is to integrate
recent advances in linguistics from a wide variety of different areas,
such as historical linguistics, language typology, language
acquisition, grammaticalization, etc. This naturally includes any
study of the different aspects and areas of language (phonology,
morphology, syntax, lexicology, semantic discourse analysis,
pragmatics, sociolinguistics) which will help to elucidate language
architecture. In conclusion, Language Design welcomes research
articles from all theoretical viewpoints and methodological
perspectives. The principal criterion for acceptance is that all
articles should contribute in some way to furthering the understanding
of the nature of language and its design features.
I. Articles
NILMA NASCIMENTO DOMINIQUE
Inventario de
emblemas gestuales españoles y brasileños
NADER AL
JALLAD
The concepts of al-halal and al-haram in the Arab-Muslim
culture: a translational and lexicographical study
LUCÍA
LUQUE NADAL
Sobre los límites de la fraseología. Dichos y
locuciones pragmático-conversacionales de carácter burlesco en
español
KATARINA KEKIĆ
El lenguaje figurado con
zoónimos en serbio
II. Book Reviews
Olímpio De
Oliveria Silva, Maria Eugênia: Fraseografía: teoría y práctica.
Reseña de Antonio Pamies.
Meunier, Fanny & Granger,
Sylviane: Phraseology in foreign language teaching and learning.
Reseña de Louisa Buckingham.
Mironesko Bielova, Elena:
Estudios de terminología rusa. Reseña de Antonio Pamies.
Álvarez de la Granja, María (ed.): Lenguaje figurado y motivación
(una perspectiva desde la fraseología). Reseña de Kamilla
Tutáeva.
Sabine Fiedler: English Phraseology. Reseña de
Joanna Szerszunowicz.
Garcia-Page, Mario: Introducción a
la fraseología española . Reseña de Antonio Pamies.
Baránov, Anatolyï, N. & Dobrovol'skij, Dmitryï, O: Аспекты
теории фразеологии ("Aspectos de la teoría
fraseológica"). Reseña de Kamilla Tutáeva.