Subject collection: Communication Studies (152 titles, 2000–2015)

This book examines the kinds of talk that service providers working in various settings (e.g. doctors, healthcare providers, helpline call takers, tourist officers) seek to avoid in their interactions with clients, when such talk may be expected or due in some way. The studies utilise Conversation Analysis to demonstrate how participants use the interactional practices of avoidance and withholding to construct specific activities as restricted. The various authors also show how, in contributing to the restricted character of certain activities, withholding and avoidance in turn contribute to both the accomplishment of the particular work of the specific organisations and to the construction of the specific institutional identities of the professionals. Overall, the collection offers an authoritative account of restriction and avoidance in workplace interaction.

The major purpose of newspaper headlines is to trigger the reader’s interest. A popular way to achieve this goal is the use of phraseological modifications. Based on previous findings from various linguistic disciplines, this book provides an interdisciplinary approach to shed light on the reception of substitutions like More than Meats the Eye. It develops an empirical methodology for investigating the complex cognitive processes involved, using a large sample of authentic examples for illustration. Along these lines, this volume not only shows what associations readers make when they encounter a lexical substitution and what factors facilitate the recognition of the canonical form. It also addresses the question of how meaning is constructed in terms of Conceptual Integration Theory and establishes an experimentally supported model of interpretation. This multifaceted perspective renders Phraseological Substitutions in Newspaper Headlines: "More than Meats the Eye" relevant to scholars and advanced students from a wide range of linguistic areas, such as phraseology, cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics, and humour research, but also to interested journalists.

Professional Communication across Languages and Cultures aims at developing an integrative linguistic perspective on talk at work. Professional communication allows multi- and interdisciplinary explorations on how workplace relationships and mechanisms are influenced by the use of certain linguistic patterns. The book approaches the topic of professional communication from multiple levels, providing critical, valuable insights into the dynamics of creating and maintaining professional relationships at work.

After outlining the theoretical and analytical frameworks, the eleven chapters uncover and develop integrative themes that emerge within the three parts of the book: Dialogue and identity in professional settings, Functions and strategies in professional communication and Specific issues in professional communication.

Scholars and students who are interested in research based on authentic data and case studies of efficient communication at work, as well as those teaching courses on interpersonal communication, discourse analysis, pragmatics and sociolinguistics will find useful insights in this volume.

It has become commonplace to employ dialogue-based approaches in producing and communicating knowledge in diverse fields. Here, “dialogue” has become a buzzword that promises democratic, participatory processes of mutual learning and knowledge co-production. But what does “dialogue” actually entail in the fields in which it is practised and how can we analyse those practices in ways that take account of their complexities?

The Promise of Dialogue presents a novel theoretical framework for analysing the dialogic turn in the production and communication of knowledge that builds bridges across three research traditions - dialogic communication theory, action research, and science and technology studies.

It also provides an empirically rich account of the dialogic turn through case studies of how dialogue is enacted in the fields of planned communication, public engagement with science and collaborative research. A critical, reflexive approach is taken that interrogates the complexities, tensions and dilemmas inherent in the enactment of “dialogue” and is oriented towards further developing dialogic practices from a position normatively supportive of the dialogic turn.

A Pragmatic Analysis of Legal Proofs of Criminal Intent is a detailed investigation of proofs of criminal intent in Israeli courtrooms. The book analyses linguistic, pragmatic, interpretative and argumentative strategies used by Israeli lawyers and judges in order to examine the defendant’s intention. There can be no doubt that this subject is worthy of a thorough investigation. A person’s intention is a psychological phenomenon and therefore, unless the defendant chooses to confess his intent, it cannot be proven directly – either by evidence or by witnesses’ testimonies. The defendant’s intention must be inferred usually from the overall circumstances of the case; verbal and situational contexts, cultural and ideological assumptions and implicatures should be taken into account. The linguistic analysis of these inferences presented here is necessarily comprehensive: it requires consideration of a variety of theoretical frameworks including speech act theory, discourse analysis, argumentation theory, polyphony theory and text linguistics.

Over the past two decades, international trade agreements such as GATT and NAFTA have lowered international trade barriers. At the same time, the information revolution has fueled profound shifts in the ways companies conduct business and communicate with their customers, and worldwide acceptance of the ISO 9000 standard has established the notion that quality must be defined in terms of customer satisfaction. Falling trade barriers and rising quality standards have made linguistic and cultural issues increasingly important. To successfully compete in today’s global on-demand economy, companies must localize their products and services to fit the needs of the local market in terms of language, culture, functionality, work practices, as well as legal and regulatory requirements. In recognition of the growing importance of localization, this volume explores a certain number of key issues, including:





• Return on investment and the localization business case

• Localization cost drivers and cost-containment strategies

• Localization quality and customer-focused quality management

• Challenges posed by localization of games, including Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs)

• Using a meta-language to facilitate accurate translation of disembodied content

• The case for managing source-language terminology

• Terminology management in the localization process

• Reconciling industry needs and academic objectives in localization education

• Localization standards and the commoditization of linguistic information

• The creation and application of language industry standards

• Rethinking customer-focused localization through user-centered design

• Moving from

translation reuse to language reuse