Editors' preface

Abstract

Although the tradition of contrastive linguistics has a very long history, the approach to this type of studies has been constantly changing with the emergence of new linguistic theories and approaches to understanding the notion of language. Today, the scope of contrastive studies ranges from formal to functional and pragmatic linguistics, from structuralism through generativism to cognitivism, and from theoretical analyses to corpus linguistics. The present book focuses on the variety of the possible approaches to contrasting languages. Thus, the authors who have contributed to this monograph represent various methodologies and schools of analysis: formal, functional, cognitive, pragmatic, and cultural-linguistic.