Browse Books

This monograph introduces the Evaluative Discourse Metaphor model which argues that participants in public and semi-public online discourse (re)use evaluative metaphors to construct and maintain communities. We explore how such metaphors trigger others with similar forms though not necessarily the same evaluative targets generating discourse spaces unified by a shared evaluative ethos. The model draws on a discourse-based view of metaphor Hallidayan metafunctions Du Bois’s stance triangle and insights from computer-mediated communication with a focus on affordances and community-building. We define or redefine key concepts including single evaluative metaphors metaphorical complexes triggers bondicons and chains. Rather than departing from existing literature we integrate it into a framework valuable to scholars in metaphor studies digital ethnography discourse analysis and online communication.

This is the first comprehensive volume to explore the tendency from ‘intersubjective’ to ‘textual’ functions in semantic-pragmatic change. It challenges the influential hypothesis based on the pioneering works by Traugott i.e. the unidirectionality of change from objective to subjective and then to intersubjective meanings. In this framework textual meanings precede (inter)subjective ones. Questioning this established trajectory the contributions in this volume offer fresh perspectives on the development of intersubjective and textual functions. The chapters provide new empirical data about different constructions (modals conditionals discourse markers non-lexical items etc.) across a variety of largely unrelated languages (Ainu Mandarin Chinese English German Japanese Italian Sicilian Spanish).<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>This book collects a multifaceted reflection for researchers interested in language change especially at the interface of semantics and pragmatics providing readers with an opportunity to better understand the crucial processes of textualization and intersubjectification.

Grammar in Action: Building comprehensive grammars of talk-in-interaction investigates the possibility of writing comprehensive grammars of languages based on analyses of interaction. The volume combines two traditions in language studies that have hitherto been separate: Interactional Linguistics which analyzes instances of language use in naturally occurring interactions and Descriptive Grammars which describe the grammatical regularities of languages. The authors are skilled researchers in Interactional Linguistics. They analyze interactional phenomena in Danish English Finnish French German Italian and Swedish making concrete proposals about how grammatical phenomena might be described in a comprehensive interactional grammar. The volume also proposes solutions to problems that an interactional grammar faces for instance the written language bias the role of prosody and the body in the grammar how to approach different target audiences and how a web-based grammar could be useful for rendering the complexities of grammar in interaction.

This volume of stylistic scholarship is dedicated to the memory of one of the most inspirational and kindest stylistics scholars of the late 20th and early 21st centuries Peter Verdonk (1934-2021). Verdonk was Professor of Stylistics at the University of Amsterdam and one of the founding members of the Poetics and Linguistics Association (PALA). Many of his colleagues from PALA have contributed chapters to this volume. Each author has chosen as their starting point one of Verdonk’s ideas on literary and linguistic style. Through his many nuanced and illuminating stylistic analyses Verdonk’s works explore questions pertaining to: How can we recognise styles and stylistic features? How is style used in literary and non-literary contexts? What is the relationship between text and discourse and between production and reception? And centrally how can we consider ‘style’ as ‘motivated choice’. The chapters in this volume are erudite and inspirational. Reflecting Verdonk's own influence on the discipline of stylistics and his career-long support of younger scholars they will motivate new stylistics researchers and students for decades to come.

El presente volumen explora la riqueza y pluralidad del turismo y su discurso a través de un análisis interdisciplinario que proporciona una visión integral del impacto del turismo en diversas esferas comunicativas sociales y culturales. Esta obra recopila un total de quince investigaciones que destacan la naturaleza intercultural multifacética y multilingüe de esta actividad así como la variedad de géneros discursivos que merecen un análisis detenido.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>El volumen aborda desde la influencia de las redes sociales y la creación de nuevos formatos del discurso turístico hasta la emoción y la subjetividad presentes en las comunicaciones promocionales. Ofrece una panorámica de cómo el turismo contemporáneo se entrelaza con múltiples dimensiones y formatos discursivos subrayando los desafíos estratégicos que enfrentan traductores terminólogos y lingüistas.<br/><br/> This volume explores the richness and plurality of tourism and its discourse through an interdisciplinary analysis providing a comprehensive view of the impact of tourism on various communicative social and cultural spheres. It compiles a total of fifteen investigations which highlight the intercultural multifaceted and multilingual nature of this activity as well as the variety of discursive genres that merit close analysis. <br/>The volume addresses everything from the influence of social networks and the creation of new formats of tourism discourse to the emotion and subjectivity present in promotional communications. It provides an overview of how contemporary tourism is intertwined with multiple dimensions and discursive formats highlighting the strategic challenges facing translators terminologists and linguists.

This volume extends research on ideology in the news into the historical sphere spanning discourse from the mid-seventeenth to the early twentieth century. The chapters investigate the ideological representation and assessment of political events across three continents such as uprisings independence and genocide but also of pervasive socio-cultural aspects like gender and language. For this they rely on a wide range of sources from handwritten news letters via general daily papers to specialized magazines and from classical editorial content to letters published in newspapers. The geographical and linguistic focus of the texts investigated comprises British American Italian German and Polish discourse. The articles use both qualitative and quantitative corpus-based methodology such as keyword or collocational analysis. The book is of interest for scholars in (historical) linguistics history and journalism studies.

The rise of influencers as power-players in the social media landscape is a defining feature of the digital era one that has received much attention from a variety of social science disciplines. But despite the key role that language along with other semiotic modes plays in the construction and communication of influencer selves discourse analytic and pragmatic research on the topic is lagging behind. This volume attempts to fill this void by offering contextually sensitive insights into influencers’ multi-modal communication on a range of platforms. The contributions rework established modes and tools of discourse analysis and pragmatics to shed empirical light on influencer identities and tensions (e.g. doing authenticity vis-à-vis promoting brands). We specifically attend to (a) the interplay between media affordances and communication practices and (b) the co-constructional interactive nature of influencer selves with networked audiences ranging from ‘affect’ to ‘hate’.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>In addition to linguists we hope that the volume will be of interest to scholars and students of social media communication from sociological cultural studies anthropological and/or social psychological perspectives.

The volume aims to advance understanding of argumentative practices in different communicative contexts with special regard for those with heightened public resonance: politics media and public debate in general. Furthermore it intends to explore the linguistic aspects of argumentation including both explicit codification with the related issue of indicators and the activation of implicit meanings.<br xmlns="http://pub2web.metastore.ingenta.com/ns/"/>Bringing together different paradigms to account for the relations between contextual factors and discourse realizations the contributions articulate around three foci placing emphasis on one or more of them: the communicative purpose within a given genre or activity type; the argumentative and linguistic features of the investigated discourses among which prototypical patterns argumentative styles and implicit meanings; the assessment of argumentation quality and strategies to cope with illegitimate practices.<br/>

This book aims to address a gap in the existing literature on the relationship between vagueness and ambiguity as well as on their differences and similarities both in synchrony and diachrony and taking into consideration their relation to language use. The book is divided into two parts which address specific and broader research questions from different perspectives. The former part examines the differences between ambiguity and vagueness from a bird-eye perspective with a particular focus on their respective functions and roles in language change. It also presents innovative linguistic resources and tools for the study of these phenomena. The second part contains case studies on vagueness and ambiguity in language change and use. It considers different strategies and languages including English French German Italian Medieval Latin and Old Italian. The readership for this volume is broad encompassing scholars in a range of disciplines including pragmatics spoken discourse conversation analysis discourse genres (political commercial notarial discourse) corpus studies language change pragmaticalization and language typology.

This volume aims to stretch the boundaries of text and discourse linguistics exploring organization and structuring in discourse across a variety of communication forms from written to spoken to visual in old and new media. It presents a collection of case studies ranging in focus from the micro-level discourse functions of pronouns and emojis to the macro-level structure of online interaction all from their different perspectives drawing inspiration from the notion of text as structure and process. In a world of proliferating media and discourse types the papers collected here reflect the latest scholarship in text and discourse studies highlighting the value of combining multiple approaches and suggesting future directions and possibilities for research.

Structures in Discourse will be of interest to students and researchers in pragmatics discourse analysis media studies and digitally mediated communication.