To this day research in pre-colonial Swahili history has only taken casual notice of the role of Swahili crafts. This applies in particular to blacksmithing and iron smelting. Probably iron smelting were among the driving factors of cultural contact and of the development of economical structures on the Swahili Coast. Kusimba postulates that metallurgy played an important role for cultural change within Swahili polities. Foreign trade in iron products to other parts of the Indian Ocean fostered local exchange systems that linked the East African settlements on the Coast to each other and the interior (1996:387). In this article the potential of linguistic research on iron crafts for Swahili historiography will be demonstrated, though it has to be emphasised that linguistic evidence is as of yet too scarce to allow more than preliminary results. Two steps are deemed necessary to achieve this aim. In a first step the scientific contributions by historical linguistics, history, and archaeology in regard to Swahili iron working will be reviewed. In a second step it will be demonstrated that historical semantics, together with language geography can make a significant contribution to this discussion. More than anything else, it is the semantic aspect of language that is capable of revealing pre-colonial cultural change in Africa. With comparative phonological and morphological methods historical genetic relationships within a given language family can be discovered.

This project investigates the cognitive linguistic categories that structure the Old Irish landscape lexicon. The semantics of basic landscape vocabulary are differentiated based on collocate analysis and close reading of relevant text passages. Terms are compared across subdomains in order to identify linguistic categories that apply to the overall landscape lexicon. The analysis shows distinctions of (a) domesticated vs. wild landscape features, and (b) landmarks vs. non-landmarks. These distinctions are motivated by a combination of the interactional properties (a, b) and the independent salience (b) of the landscape features. Understanding the cognitive linguistic categories of Old Irish landscape vocabulary provides insight into how medieval Irish society conceptualized the natural world.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate lexical replacement processes from several complementary perspectives. It does so through three studies, each with a different scope and time depth. The first study (chapter 3) takes a high time depth perspective and investigates factors that affect the rate (likelihood) of lexical replacement in the core vocabulary of 98 Indo-European language varieties through a multiple linear regression model. The chapter shows that the following factors predict part of the rate of lexical replacement for non-grammatical concepts: frequency, the number of synonyms and senses, and how imageable the concept is in the mind. What looks like a straightforward lexical replacement at a high time depth perspective is better understood as several intertwined gradual processes of lexical change at lower time depths. The second study (chapter 5) narrows the focus to seven closely-related Germanic language varieties (English, German, Bernese, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Icelandic) and a single semantic domain, namely color.  The chapter charts several lexical replacement and change processes in the pink and purple area of color space through experiments with 146 speakers. The third study (chapter 6) narrows the focus even more, to two generations of speakers of a single language, Swedish. It combines experimental data on how the two age groups partition and label the color space in general, and pink and purple in particular, with more detailed data on lexical replacement and change from interviews, color descriptions in historical and contemporary dictionaries, as well as botanical lexicons, and historical fiction corpora. This thesis makes a descriptive, methodological and theoretical contribution to the study of lexical replacement. Taken together, the different perspectives highlight the usefulness of method triangulation in approaching the complex phenomenon of lexical replacement.

Esta dissertação busca analisar processos de produção de sentidos sobre bebidas alcoólicas, utilizando os princípios da Semântica Histórica da Enunciação e da Análise de Discurso. Os usos da língua e os sentidos relacionados às bebidas alcoólicas são socialmente relevantes porque a produção e o consumo de bebidas alcoólicas constituem um setor significativo da economia, além de seus aspectos culturais, ou seja, o consumo tradicional de bebidas alcoólicas em certas ocasiões sociais, a polêmica sobre saúde e álcool e o simbolismo de algumas bebidas como bebidas nacionais. Para realizar nosso objetivo, selecionamos e analisamos um corpus de comerciais brasileiros e britânicos de bebidas alcoólicas para TV. Notando que os comerciais constituem sentidos evidentemente positivos para as bebidas, também incluímos um corpus de textos jurídicos brasileiros e britânicos, cujos sentidos tendem a apresentar as bebidas alcoólicas como perigosas. Para a Semântica Histórica da Enunciação, o sentido é constituído numa interação social que é historicamente determinada. Assim, os conceitos de designação (o sentido de um nome como relação histórico-lingüística) e enunciação (o acontecimento constituído pelo uso da língua), são importantes para esta análise. Apoiamo-nos, também, no diálogo estabelecido entre a Semântica Histórica com a Análise de Discurso, que busca (entre outras conexões) explicar a constituição do sujeito como um posicionamento do sujeito no interdiscurso ou memória discursiva. Este é um estudo contrastivo. Há uma comparação do funcionamento semânticodiscursivo de comerciais de TV que são produzidos e assistidos em duas sociedades diferentes. Portanto, os efeitos de sentido são muito diversos em alguns casos e semelhantes em outros. No caso dos textos jurídicos sobre álcool, também há algumas diferenças. No contraste entre os comerciais brasileiros e britânicos, observamos variações claras no modo de constituição de algumas posições de sujeito. Por exemplo, as posições de sujeito para homem e mulher. A posição de sujeito do consumidor de bebida alcoólica também está presente nos comerciais. Ambos os corpora tendem a sugerir um consumo intenso, mas o fazem de modos distintos. Os comerciais brasileiros apresentam o ato de beber principalmente como parte de celebrações coletivas. Os britânicos enfatizam mais um beber individual e utilizam efeitos especiais com mais freqüência. Analisamos outros aspectos dos comerciais com a inclusão dos códigos de auto-regulamentação publicitária na análise. O discurso jurídico funciona como uma espécie de contraponto ao discurso publicitário sobre a bebida alcoólica. O conflito das leis com os comerciais é sugerido, pois as leis brasileiras e britânicas punem certos casos de consumo e venda de bebidas alcoólicas, embora as infrações a essas leis no Reino Unido pareçam ter conseqüências ligeiramente diferentes no Brasil. A produção de sentidos nos corpora que analisamos é variável. A constituição de sentidos depende (entre outras razões) das relações interdiscursivas que se estabelecem. Destarte, os papéis e relações entre os discursos que analisamos podem ser interpretados de outras formas. / This dissertation aims at analysing the production of meaning about alcoholic drinks relying on the principles of Historical Semantics of the Utterance as well as those of Discourse Analysis. Language uses and meanings related to alcoholic drinks are socially relevant, as the production and consumption of alcoholic drinks are part of a significant sector of the economy, besides other aspects, i. e., the traditionally established consumption of alcohol on certain social occasions, the controversy over health and alcohol and the symbolic positioning of some alcoholic beverages as national drinks. To fulfill our purpose we selected and analysed a corpus of Brazilian and British alcoholic drink TV ads. Upon realization that the ads attached overwhelmingly positive meanings to the drinks, we also included a corpus of Brazilian and British legal texts whose meanings about alcoholic drinks tend to present them as dangerous. For Historical Semantics of the Utterance, meaning is constituted out of social interaction which is historically determined. Thus, the concepts of designation (meaning of a name as a linguistic, historical relation) and utterance production (the \"happening\" constituted by the use of language) are important for this analysis. This historical semantics establishes a dialog with Discourse Analysis as it (among other connections) seeks to account for the constitution of the subject as the occupation of a position in the interdiscourse or discursive memory. This study is contrastive in nature. It compares the semantic and discursive functioning of TV ads that are produced and viewed in two different societies. Therefore the meaning effects are sometimes similar and sometimes greatly different. In the case of legal texts about alcohol there are also some differences. In the contrast between Brazilian and British TV ads, we could observe clear variation in the way some subject positions are constituted, for instance, the subject positions for man and woman. The subject position of alcohol consumer is also at stake in the ads. Both TV ad corpora tend to suggestively stimulate intense consumption, but they do so in different ways. The Brazilian ads present the act of drinking, mainly as part of collective celebrations, whereas the British ads place more emphasis on individual drinking and use visual effects more frequently. Some other features of the ads are heeded as the Brazilian and British advertising self-regulated codes are included in the analysis. The laws function as a kind of counter-discourse to the advertising discourse about alcohol. The conflict of the laws with the ads is suggested as Brazilian and British laws punish certain instances of alcohol consumption and sale, although the consequences of breaching these laws in the UK seem slightly different in Brazil. The meaning production about alcoholic drinks in the corpora that we analysed are variable as meaning in general depends on the interdiscursive relations which are established, so that the roles and relations between the discourses that we analysed can be interpreted in other ways.

Este trabalho tem como objetivo a análise de sentidos em processos designativos decorrentes da chamada Abordagem/Metodologia Comunicativa, também referida como CLT (Communicative Language Teaching), depreendidos de: a) textos de teóricos em ensino-aprendizagem de língua inglesa e b) de professores de inglês, participantes de um programa de curso para certificação na didática de línguas. Pelo aparato teórico da Semântica Histórica da Enunciação, em confluência com a Análise do Discurso, que contempla a dimensão histórico-social e ideológica na relação do sujeito com a língua, buscamos compreender como se estabelecem processos de produção de sentidos em nomes que circulam em torno da designação CLT, no contexto ensino-aprendizagem de língua inglesa. A aparente estabilidade e univocidade das designações levaram-nos a confrontá-las e, com isso, propusemos um questionamento acerca da transparência da linguagem. Pela análise, percebemos uma tentativa de construção referencial do CLT e, que conflitos constitutivos da relação falante-língua são escamoteados, na cena enunciativa. A busca constante de fixação de um sentido único para essa designação, o bom sentido de comunicativo, levou-nos a buscar compreender, pelo interdiscurso (memória discursiva), como se estabelecem certos movimentos dicotômicos de produção de sentidos nos dizeres de professores e teóricos, na polarização método antigo versus método moderno. Depreendemos, pelos processos designativos analisados, que a idealização do modelo comunicativo remete a um lugar de completude, onde a aprendizagem da língua parece se dar de uma maneira natural, sem conflitos, lugar esse que professores buscam ocupar. No percurso da análise procuramos problematizar o convívio dos professores com o lugar estabelecido pelo CLT, de suposta neutralidade política perante o método, colocando-os fora de sua historicidade. Concluímos que os processos designativos dos nomes analisados buscam promover um efeito de homogeneização nos dizeres de teóricos e professores do corpus, no processo de constituição de sentidos da Abordagem Comunicativa. / This work aims at analysing meanings observed in designation processes derived from the so-called Communicative Language Teaching, also referred to as CLT, in a corpus formed by a) texts of theorists in the field of ELT and b) texts of EFL teachers who participated in a program on ELT for further external exams. From the perspective of both Historical Semantics of Enunciation and Analysis of Discourse which contemplates the historical-social and ideological dimension in the relation of the subject with language, we have sought to investigate how processes of production of meaning are established as far as names related to CLT are concerned. Our analysis enabled us to confront the apparent stabilised meaning of the observed designations in relation to the names of the Communicative Approach/Communicative Language Teaching thus questioning the evidence of language transparency. By means of analysis, we have noticed an attempt towards reference construction of CLT and also, that constitutive conflicts in the relation speaker-language are silenced in the utterance locus. The constant search for fixing a single meaning to this designation, the good meaning for communicative led us to understand, from the interdiscourse (discourse memory), how certain dichotomical movements in the constitution of meaning in the teachers´ and theorists´ sayings are established in the polarization old method versus modern method. From the analysed designation processes we have apprehended that the idealisation of the communicative model alludes to a place of completeness where the learning of the language seems to occur in a natural way, with no conflicts, a place which teachers seek to occupy. Throughout the analysis we have tried to question the experience the teachers have with the place established by the CLT, of apparent political neutrality in relation to the method, placing them out of their historical context. Our analysis has concluded that the designation processes of the analysed names seek to promote an effect of homogeneity in sayings of theorists and teachers of the corpus in the process of constitution of meanings related to the Communicative Approach/Communicative Language Teaching (CLT).

Ne se définissant pas uniquement par rapport à l’islam, le terme musulman est aujourd’hui largement polysémique en France. Cette recherche interroge donc l’usage du terme musulman et les modes d’identification sociale en tant que musulman-e-s. En première partie, elle propose une interprétation de l’évolution socio-sémantique historique du terme. Puis, en deuxième et troisième partie, elle analyse les enjeux de l’auto-catégorisation de Soi à partir d’un terrain (entretiens, questionnaires, observations). S’agit-il de se considérer d’origine musulmane et/ou de culture musulmane et/ou de religion musulmane ? Sous-tendus par la tension entre des processus d’ethnicisation, de racisation et de confessionnalisation, deux nouveaux espaces de signification sont ici développés : un nouvel usage politique questionnant la place des classes sociales, du racisme et de l’islamophobie (musulmanité) ; puis, un nouvel usage exclusivement religieux séparant la culture du religieux (muslimité). Ce dernier usage influe sur l’émergence d’une éthique islamique contemporaine et de la recherche d’un « pur religieux ». D’une manière transversale, cette thèse pose la question de ce que veut dire « est musulman-e-s » aujourd’hui en France avec la particularité de considérer à la fois l’histoire et la construction des discours sur Soi. / The word muslim, which not only refers to Islam, is nowaday polysemous to a great extent. This research analyses the uses of the word muslim and the way in which it is used to identify as muslim-s. Firstly, it focuses on the changes of the historical semantics of the term. Then it seeks to identify, from a fieldwork perspective (interviews, observations, questionnaires), what is a stake in the self-categorisation process. Is muslim an ethnicity, a religious or a cultural category ? The ethnicization, racialization and confessionalization religious processes bring about two knew signification new spaces : a new political use which raises questions on class, race and islamophobia (muslimness) and a new confessional use who cleave culture and cult (muslimity). This last use leads to the formation of a contemporary Islamic ethics and to the search of a ”pure religious”. This transversal study asks what being muslim-s means in France today, considering history as well as self-categorisation discourses.

Este trabalho tem como objetivo a análise de sentidos em processos designativos decorrentes da chamada Abordagem/Metodologia Comunicativa, também referida como CLT (Communicative Language Teaching), depreendidos de: a) textos de teóricos em ensino-aprendizagem de língua inglesa e b) de professores de inglês, participantes de um programa de curso para certificação na didática de línguas. Pelo aparato teórico da Semântica Histórica da Enunciação, em confluência com a Análise do Discurso, que contempla a dimensão histórico-social e ideológica na relação do sujeito com a língua, buscamos compreender como se estabelecem processos de produção de sentidos em nomes que circulam em torno da designação CLT, no contexto ensino-aprendizagem de língua inglesa. A aparente estabilidade e univocidade das designações levaram-nos a confrontá-las e, com isso, propusemos um questionamento acerca da transparência da linguagem. Pela análise, percebemos uma tentativa de construção referencial do CLT e, que conflitos constitutivos da relação falante-língua são escamoteados, na cena enunciativa. A busca constante de fixação de um sentido único para essa designação, o bom sentido de comunicativo, levou-nos a buscar compreender, pelo interdiscurso (memória discursiva), como se estabelecem certos movimentos dicotômicos de produção de sentidos nos dizeres de professores e teóricos, na polarização método antigo versus método moderno. Depreendemos, pelos processos designativos analisados, que a idealização do modelo comunicativo remete a um lugar de completude, onde a aprendizagem da língua parece se dar de uma maneira natural, sem conflitos, lugar esse que professores buscam ocupar. No percurso da análise procuramos problematizar o convívio dos professores com o lugar estabelecido pelo CLT, de suposta neutralidade política perante o método, colocando-os fora de sua historicidade. Concluímos que os processos designativos dos nomes analisados buscam promover um efeito de homogeneização nos dizeres de teóricos e professores do corpus, no processo de constituição de sentidos da Abordagem Comunicativa. / This work aims at analysing meanings observed in designation processes derived from the so-called Communicative Language Teaching, also referred to as CLT, in a corpus formed by a) texts of theorists in the field of ELT and b) texts of EFL teachers who participated in a program on ELT for further external exams. From the perspective of both Historical Semantics of Enunciation and Analysis of Discourse which contemplates the historical-social and ideological dimension in the relation of the subject with language, we have sought to investigate how processes of production of meaning are established as far as names related to CLT are concerned. Our analysis enabled us to confront the apparent stabilised meaning of the observed designations in relation to the names of the Communicative Approach/Communicative Language Teaching thus questioning the evidence of language transparency. By means of analysis, we have noticed an attempt towards reference construction of CLT and also, that constitutive conflicts in the relation speaker-language are silenced in the utterance locus. The constant search for fixing a single meaning to this designation, the good meaning for communicative led us to understand, from the interdiscourse (discourse memory), how certain dichotomical movements in the constitution of meaning in the teachers´ and theorists´ sayings are established in the polarization old method versus modern method. From the analysed designation processes we have apprehended that the idealisation of the communicative model alludes to a place of completeness where the learning of the language seems to occur in a natural way, with no conflicts, a place which teachers seek to occupy. Throughout the analysis we have tried to question the experience the teachers have with the place established by the CLT, of apparent political neutrality in relation to the method, placing them out of their historical context. Our analysis has concluded that the designation processes of the analysed names seek to promote an effect of homogeneity in sayings of theorists and teachers of the corpus in the process of constitution of meanings related to the Communicative Approach/Communicative Language Teaching (CLT).

Esta dissertação busca analisar processos de produção de sentidos sobre bebidas alcoólicas, utilizando os princípios da Semântica Histórica da Enunciação e da Análise de Discurso. Os usos da língua e os sentidos relacionados às bebidas alcoólicas são socialmente relevantes porque a produção e o consumo de bebidas alcoólicas constituem um setor significativo da economia, além de seus aspectos culturais, ou seja, o consumo tradicional de bebidas alcoólicas em certas ocasiões sociais, a polêmica sobre saúde e álcool e o simbolismo de algumas bebidas como bebidas nacionais. Para realizar nosso objetivo, selecionamos e analisamos um corpus de comerciais brasileiros e britânicos de bebidas alcoólicas para TV. Notando que os comerciais constituem sentidos evidentemente positivos para as bebidas, também incluímos um corpus de textos jurídicos brasileiros e britânicos, cujos sentidos tendem a apresentar as bebidas alcoólicas como perigosas. Para a Semântica Histórica da Enunciação, o sentido é constituído numa interação social que é historicamente determinada. Assim, os conceitos de designação (o sentido de um nome como relação histórico-lingüística) e enunciação (o acontecimento constituído pelo uso da língua), são importantes para esta análise. Apoiamo-nos, também, no diálogo estabelecido entre a Semântica Histórica com a Análise de Discurso, que busca (entre outras conexões) explicar a constituição do sujeito como um posicionamento do sujeito no interdiscurso ou memória discursiva. Este é um estudo contrastivo. Há uma comparação do funcionamento semânticodiscursivo de comerciais de TV que são produzidos e assistidos em duas sociedades diferentes. Portanto, os efeitos de sentido são muito diversos em alguns casos e semelhantes em outros. No caso dos textos jurídicos sobre álcool, também há algumas diferenças. No contraste entre os comerciais brasileiros e britânicos, observamos variações claras no modo de constituição de algumas posições de sujeito. Por exemplo, as posições de sujeito para homem e mulher. A posição de sujeito do consumidor de bebida alcoólica também está presente nos comerciais. Ambos os corpora tendem a sugerir um consumo intenso, mas o fazem de modos distintos. Os comerciais brasileiros apresentam o ato de beber principalmente como parte de celebrações coletivas. Os britânicos enfatizam mais um beber individual e utilizam efeitos especiais com mais freqüência. Analisamos outros aspectos dos comerciais com a inclusão dos códigos de auto-regulamentação publicitária na análise. O discurso jurídico funciona como uma espécie de contraponto ao discurso publicitário sobre a bebida alcoólica. O conflito das leis com os comerciais é sugerido, pois as leis brasileiras e britânicas punem certos casos de consumo e venda de bebidas alcoólicas, embora as infrações a essas leis no Reino Unido pareçam ter conseqüências ligeiramente diferentes no Brasil. A produção de sentidos nos corpora que analisamos é variável. A constituição de sentidos depende (entre outras razões) das relações interdiscursivas que se estabelecem. Destarte, os papéis e relações entre os discursos que analisamos podem ser interpretados de outras formas. / This dissertation aims at analysing the production of meaning about alcoholic drinks relying on the principles of Historical Semantics of the Utterance as well as those of Discourse Analysis. Language uses and meanings related to alcoholic drinks are socially relevant, as the production and consumption of alcoholic drinks are part of a significant sector of the economy, besides other aspects, i. e., the traditionally established consumption of alcohol on certain social occasions, the controversy over health and alcohol and the symbolic positioning of some alcoholic beverages as national drinks. To fulfill our purpose we selected and analysed a corpus of Brazilian and British alcoholic drink TV ads. Upon realization that the ads attached overwhelmingly positive meanings to the drinks, we also included a corpus of Brazilian and British legal texts whose meanings about alcoholic drinks tend to present them as dangerous. For Historical Semantics of the Utterance, meaning is constituted out of social interaction which is historically determined. Thus, the concepts of designation (meaning of a name as a linguistic, historical relation) and utterance production (the \"happening\" constituted by the use of language) are important for this analysis. This historical semantics establishes a dialog with Discourse Analysis as it (among other connections) seeks to account for the constitution of the subject as the occupation of a position in the interdiscourse or discursive memory. This study is contrastive in nature. It compares the semantic and discursive functioning of TV ads that are produced and viewed in two different societies. Therefore the meaning effects are sometimes similar and sometimes greatly different. In the case of legal texts about alcohol there are also some differences. In the contrast between Brazilian and British TV ads, we could observe clear variation in the way some subject positions are constituted, for instance, the subject positions for man and woman. The subject position of alcohol consumer is also at stake in the ads. Both TV ad corpora tend to suggestively stimulate intense consumption, but they do so in different ways. The Brazilian ads present the act of drinking, mainly as part of collective celebrations, whereas the British ads place more emphasis on individual drinking and use visual effects more frequently. Some other features of the ads are heeded as the Brazilian and British advertising self-regulated codes are included in the analysis. The laws function as a kind of counter-discourse to the advertising discourse about alcohol. The conflict of the laws with the ads is suggested as Brazilian and British laws punish certain instances of alcohol consumption and sale, although the consequences of breaching these laws in the UK seem slightly different in Brazil. The meaning production about alcoholic drinks in the corpora that we analysed are variable as meaning in general depends on the interdiscursive relations which are established, so that the roles and relations between the discourses that we analysed can be interpreted in other ways.

In this work, we test two novel methods of using word embeddings to detect lexical semantic change, attempting to overcome limitations associated with conventional approaches to this problem. Using a diachronic corpus spanning over a hundred years, we generate word embeddings for each decade with the intention of evaluating how meaning changes are represented in embeddings for the same word across time. Our approach differs from previous works in this field in that we encode words as probabilistic Gaussian distributions and bimodal probabilistic Gaussian mixtures, rather than conventional word vectors. We provide a discussion and analysis of our results, comparing the approaches we implemented with those used in previous works. We also conducted further analysis on whether additional information regarding the nature of semantic change could be discerned from particular qualities of the embeddings we generated for our experiments. In our results, we find that encoding words as probabilistic Gaussian embeddings can provide an enhanced degree of reliability with regard to detecting lexical semantic change. Furthermore, we are able to represent additional information regarding the nature of such changes through the variance of these embeddings. Encoding words as bimodal Gaussian mixtures however is generally unsuccessful for this task, proving to be not reliable enough at distinguishing between discrete senses to effectively detect and measure such changes. We provide potential explanations for the results we observe, and propose improvements that can be made to our approach to potentially improve performance.

To this day research in pre-colonial Swahili history has only taken casual notice of the role of Swahili crafts. This applies in particular to blacksmithing and iron smelting. Probably iron smelting were among the driving factors of cultural contact and of the development of economical structures on the Swahili Coast. Kusimba postulates that metallurgy played an important role for cultural change within Swahili polities. Foreign trade in iron products to other parts of the Indian Ocean fostered local exchange systems that linked the East African settlements on the Coast to each other and the interior (1996:387). In this article the potential of linguistic research on iron crafts for Swahili historiography will be demonstrated, though it has to be emphasised that linguistic evidence is as of yet too scarce to allow more than preliminary results. Two steps are deemed necessary to achieve this aim. In a first step the scientific contributions by historical linguistics, history, and archaeology in regard to Swahili iron working will be reviewed. In a second step it will be demonstrated that historical semantics, together with language geography can make a significant contribution to this discussion. More than anything else, it is the semantic aspect of language that is capable of revealing pre-colonial cultural change in Africa. With comparative phonological and morphological methods historical genetic relationships within a given language family can be discovered.