Babel No20 (August 2017)
Articles
Language: Its Forms and Functions – Simone Bacchini introduces Systemic Functional Linguistics
The Limits of Machine Translation – Inderjeet Mani on the challenges of machine translation
Looking for Language in the Brain – Patrick C. Trettenbrein offers a round-up of research into language and the brain
Why Does Everyone in Star Wars Speak English? – Philip Seargeant looks at the different ways in which sci-fi writers have created alien languages
Regular features
Ask a Linguist – Are there constructions that are grammatically describable in different ways?
Interview with a Linguist – Laura Wright interviews Massimo Sturiale
Language Games – Spectacular spectrograms
Language in the News – The problem with language in the news
Languages of the World – Heiko Wiggers on Low German
The Linguistic Lexicon – Babel brings you the letter T
Lives in Language – Michaela Jane Milligan on Zhou Yougang
Meet the Professionals – Babel meets the founder of Linguisticator
Pull-out poster – How machines understand speech
Reviews – The 2017 Babel Lecture; Paul Anthony Jones’ ‘The Accidental Dictionary’