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Title: Thirty Years of Contrastive Linguistics Conferences: A Volume in Memory of Jacek Fisiak (1936-2019)

Thirty Years of Contrastive Linguistics Conferences: A Volume in Memory of Jacek Fisiak (1936-2019)

by Camiel Hamans (Volume editor) Katarzyna Dziubalska-Kolaczyk (Volume editor) Anna Balas (Volume editor)
©2026 Edited Collection XLII, 348 Pages
Linguistics
Series: Crossroads and Interfaces: Studies in Linguistics and Literature, Volume 45

Summary

This collection briefly looks at the history of contrastive linguistics and the place the Poznań School of Contrastive Linguistics occupied, with an emphasis on new contrastive research that shows where the field now stands. Through 17 contributions, internationally well-known specialists show the place contrastive linguistic research occupies in modern linguistics after more than half a century.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • Epigraph
  • Contents
  • List of figures
  • List of tables
  • Acknowledgements
  • Thirty years of Contrastive Linguistics conferences (Katarzyna Dziubalska-Kołaczyk)
  • Jacek Fisiak and his view of Contrastive Linguistics (Camiel Hamans)
  • Chapter 1. Languages sharing space: In conflict or peaceful coexistence? (Michael Sharwood Smith)
  • Chapter 2. What linguistics isn’t contrastive? (Dennis R. Preston)
  • Chapter 3. Language technology (Frieda Steurs)
  • Chapter 4. From Fisiak’s Contrastive Project to the state of the art (Anna Balas, Magdalena Wrembel, Kamil Kaźmierski, Jarosław Weckwerth and Katarzyna Dziubalska-Kołaczyk)
  • Chapter 5. At least three (Livio Gaeta)
  • Chapter 6. Contrastive research about early child language (Wolfgang U. Dressler, Katharina Korecky-Kröll and Marina Čamber)
  • Chapter 7. A confrontative apprehension of verb flexion in Arabic and Korean (Jerzy Bańczerowski and Anna Borowiak)
  • Chapter 8. Hedging: Some contrastive evidence from English, Polish, and German (Barbara Kryk-Kastovsky)
  • Chapter 9. Some aspects of pronominal distribution and cataphora effects (Jacek Witkoś)
  • Chapter 10. Now you see them, now you don’t (Stephen J. Nagle, Sara L. Sanders and Camiel Hamans)
  • Chapter 11. The Norwegian contrastive two-written-norm situation (Ernst Håkon Jahr)
  • Chapter 12. On onomasiological subjectification (John Charles Smith)
  • Chapter 13. Greece, Rome, and the Carolingian Empire (Hans Henrich Hock)
  • Chapter 14. How far can you go? Two cases of bizarre renderings of religious texts (Tomasz Paweł Krzeszowski)
  • Chapter 15. Technical norms in Norwegian subtitling of Anglophone TV series (Witosław Awedyk)

A portrait of JF

his world was seen through sooty glasses

however he clearly noticed where history solidified

he carried water to deserts

found trails through gorges and ravines

showed shortcuts past rocks

and discovered where a thin bridge could be hung

confidently knew there was an other side

perhaps icy and therefore only passable step by step

but he went ahead to test the firmness

and finding it shouted for the others to follow

back on his own bank he set up a lookout

to welcome the friends he had shared a glass with

elsewhere

—Camiel Hamans

Contents

  1. List of figures

  2. List of tables

  3. Acknowledgements

  4. Thirty years of Contrastive Linguistics conferences

    Katarzyna Dziubalska-Kołaczyk

  5. Jacek Fisiak and his view of Contrastive Linguistics

    Camiel Hamans

  6. Chapter 1 Languages sharing space: In conflict or peaceful coexistence?

    Michael Sharwood Smith

  7. Chapter 2 What linguistics isn’t contrastive?

    Dennis R. Preston

  8. Chapter 3 Language technology

    Frieda Steurs

  9. Chapter 4 From Fisiak’s Contrastive Project to the state of the art

    Anna Balas, Magdalena Wrembel, Kamil Kaźmierski, Jarosław Weckwerth and Katarzyna Dziubalska-Kołaczyk

  10. Chapter 5 At least three

    Livio Gaeta

  11. Chapter 6 Contrastive research about early child language

    Wolfgang U. Dressler, Katharina Korecky-Kröll and Marina Čamber

  12. Chapter 7 A confrontative apprehension of verb flexion in Arabic and Korean

    Jerzy Bańczerowski and Anna Borowiak

  13. Chapter 8 Hedging: Some contrastive evidence from English, Polish, and German

    Barbara Kryk-Kastovsky

  14. Chapter 9 Some aspects of pronominal distribution and cataphora effects

    Jacek Witkoś

  15. Chapter 10 Now you see them, now you don’t

    Stephen J. Nagle, Sara L. Sanders and Camiel Hamans

  16. Chapter 11 The Norwegian contrastive two-written-norm situation

    Ernst Håkon Jahr

  17. Chapter 12 On onomasiological subjectification

    John Charles Smith

  18. Chapter 13 Greece, Rome, and the Carolingian Empire

    Hans Henrich Hock

  19. Chapter 14 How far can you go? Two cases of bizarre renderings of religious texts

    Tomasz Paweł Krzeszowski

  20. Chapter 15 Technical norms in Norwegian subtitling of Anglophone TV series

    Witosław Awedyk

Figures

Dennis R. Preston

  1. Figure 2.1: Optimality theory tableau (Zuraw 2003: 219)

  2. Figure 2.2: The location of the NCS vowel system, based on the relative positions of /ɛ/ and /ɑ/, shown as (e) and (o) in the figure. The smallest outlines show the core area of the shift (Labov, Ash & Boberg 2005: 204).

  3. Figure 2.3: Female speaker from Grand Rapids, MI (‘B. Einhorn’) from Labov 2006, Plotnik 09.3 (retrieved from http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wlabov/Plotnik.html); subsequently normalised in NORM (Thomas & Kendall 2007)

  4. Figure 2.4: The Peterson and Barney (1950) adult female US Vowel System; normalised (Thomas & Kendall 2007)

  5. Figure 2.5: NCS vowels of a white female homemaker, elementary education, Gaylord, Michigan, DARE respondent, born 1923, interviewed in 1970

  6. Figure 2.6: A hypothetical CS redistribution of vowel classes for a Spanish learner of English in an NCS contact situation (Spanish vowels shaded; NCS white)

  7. Figure 2.7: The English vowel system of Domingo, A 70-year-old native Mexican Spanish speaker who learnt English in an NCS setting (data from Ocumpaugh 2010)

  8. Figure 2.8: Young Mexican American Spanish speakers (shaded circles, data from Roeder 2006) contrasted with the local Lansing MI NCS system (white squares)

  9. Figure 2.9: The NCS system arranged in symmetrical front-back pairs

  10. Figure 2.10: The symmetric, triangular system of young Mexican American speakers (see Figure 2.8)

  11. Figure 2.11: The Polish vowel system (nasal vowels excluded), N=27, 17 female, 10 male; (data from Owsianny 2001:199)

  12. Figure 2.12: Young Polish Americans from Hamtramck, Michigan, N=7, 3 female, 4 male (Firestone & Giese 2008)

  13. Figure 2.13: Young Rural Northern MI respondent’s vowel system (Ito 2005)

Frieda Steurs

  1. Figure 3.1: E-commerce by Prologis (https://www.prologis.com/news-research/global-insights/european-e-commerce-e-fulfilment-and-job-creation)

  2. Figure 3.2: Meta-Net fact sheet (http://www.meta-net.eu/)

Anna Balas, Magdalena Wrembel, Kamil Kaźmierski, Jarosław Weckwerth and Katarzyna Dziubalska-Kołaczyk

  1. Figure 4.1: Distances between Norwegian and Polish phones in terms of Euclidean distances based on F1, F2 and F3, and F1 and F2 only measures

  2. Figure 4.2: Plots illustrating assimilation rates as a function of the Euclidean distance for each Norwegian vowel stimulus

Tables

Anna Balas, Magdalena Wrembel, Kamil Kaźmierski, Jarosław Weckwerth and Katarzyna Dziubalska-Kołaczyk

  1. Table 4.1: Confusion matrix with mean per cent categorization and goodness rating of assimilation of Norwegian vowel stimuli

  2. Table 4.2: Summary of the negative binomial model of the assimilation count in a coefficient table.

Livio Gaeta

  1. Table 5.1: Σ-roles in the three languages

  2. Table 5.2: Monovalent verbs in the three languages

  3. Table 5.3: Passive as a constructional pattern in the three languages

  4. Table 5.4: Canonical passives in the three languages

  5. Table 5.5: Uncanonical passives in the three languages

  6. Table 5.6: IObj passives in the three languages

  7. Table 5.7: Further passive-like constructions in the three languages

  8. Table 5.8: Passive types in the three languages

Wolfgang U. Dressler, Katharina Korecky-Kröll and Marina Čamber

  1. Table 6.1: Plural markers in German

  2. Table 6.2: Plural suffixes in Croatian

  3. Table 6.3: Results of First PET – age 3

  4. Table 6.4: Second PET – age 4

John Charles Smith

  1. Table 12.1: Proposed distinctions between ser and estar

  2. Table 12.2: Frequency of ser and estar

  3. Table 12.3: A semantic typology of adjectives (Alfaraz 2012, after Dixon 2004)

  4. Table 12.4: Frequency of ser < estar according to adjective type

  5. Table 12.5: A semantic typology of adjectives ranked for likelihood of ser < estar

  6. Table 12.6: Spanish adjectives selected to represent each category

  7. Table 12.7: A semantic typology of adjectives ranked for gradience and affectivity

  8. Table 12.8: A semantic typology of adjectives ranked by ‘intrinsic’ modification

Witosław Awedyk

  1. Table 15.1: Exposure time and expected reading speed – the 1980s norm

  2. Table 15.2: Exposure time and expected reading speed – the 2000s norms

  3. Table 15.3: Subtitling quantity and density following the 2000s norms

  4. Table 15.4: Subtitle quantity and density following the 2000 norms

  5. Table 15.5: Structure of a subtitle from Desperate Housewives S01E05

  6. Table 15.6: Structure of a subtitle from Friends S06E16

  7. Table 15.7: Structure of a subtitle from Friends S03E21

  8. Table 15.8: Structure of a subtitle from Desperate Housewives S04E02

  9. Table 15.9: Structure of a subtitle from Friends S03E11

  10. Table 15.10: Structure of a subtitle from Desperate Housewives S03E02

  11. Table 15.11: Subtitle density; Desperate Housewives Season 6 Episode 19 00:02:05,150–00:03:00,540

  12. Table 15.12: Subtitle density – the opening sequence of Desperate Housewives

  13. Table 15.13: Subtitle density – opening sequences in the seasons’ first episodes

  14. Table 15.14: Condensation rate in the opening sequences – season’s first episodes

Acknowledgements

This collection of papers presented at the special session in memory of Jacek Fisiak (1936–2019) at the 50th Poznań Linguistic Meeting (PLM 2020/2021) on 16 September 2021 has been the result of considerable teamwork. We owe special thanks to Jarosław Weckwerth, who edited all the papers and checked them for linguistic correction.

We also owe thanks to Agnieszka Chmiel, Kamila Dębowska-Kozłowska, Piotr Gąsiorowski, Agnieszka Kiełkiewicz-Janowiak, Marcin Kilarski, Ron Kim, Jacek Witkoś, Magdalena Wrembel, Sylwiusz Żychliński, Paulina Zydorowicz (all from Adam Mickiewicz University), Małgorzata Grzelak (from Opole University of Technology), Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk (from the University of Applied Sciences in Konin), Livia Gaeta (from the University of Turin), the late Margareth Winters (from Wayne State University) and one reviewer who wants to remain anonymous, who kindly reviewed the contributions. Without their willingness and knowledge, our task would not have been successful.

Our thanks also go to the Comité International Permanent des Linguistes, in particular to Secretary General Frieda Steurs, without whose financial contribution this publication would not have been possible.

We also thank Łukasz Gałecki and his team at Peter Lang Publishing House for their support and patience.

Details

Pages
XLII, 348
Publication Year
2026
ISBN (PDF)
9783631926451
ISBN (ePUB)
9783631950272
ISBN (Hardcover)
9783631877319
DOI
10.3726/b23865
Language
English
Publication date
2026 (July)
Keywords
linguistics contrastive linguistics syntax semantics morphology phonology
Published
Berlin, Bruxelles, Chennai, Lausanne, New York, Oxford, 2026. xlii, 348 pp., 18 fig. b/w, 36 tables.
Product Safety
Peter Lang Group AG

Biographical notes

Camiel Hamans (Volume editor) Katarzyna Dziubalska-Kolaczyk (Volume editor) Anna Balas (Volume editor)

Camiel Hamans is associate secretary-general of CIPL, Comité International Permanent des Linguistes. Previously, he was visiting professor of Dutch Linguistics at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, and secretary general of the Dutch Social Democrats in the European Parliament. He has published on morphology, language change, history of linguistics and minority languages. Katarzyna Dziubalska-Kołaczyk is Professor of linguistics and vice-rector for research of Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań. She has published on phonology, phonotactics and language acquisition, advocating Natural Linguistic approach to language, e.g. Beats-and-Binding Phonology. She is the Editor-in-chief of Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics and the Organizer of the Poznań Linguistic Meeting. Anna Balas is University Professor at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań. Her research focuses on second and third language acquisition of speech.

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Title: Thirty Years of Contrastive Linguistics Conferences: A Volume in Memory of Jacek Fisiak (1936-2019)