Apr 26
ChRIS CLÉiRIGhbook publication
Title: Exploring Discourse Strategies in Social and Cognitive
Interaction
Subtitle: Multimodal and cross-linguistic perspectives
Series Title: Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 262
Publication Year: 2016
Publisher: John Benjamins
http://www.benjamins.com/
Book URL: https://benjamins.com/catalog/pbns.262
Editor: Manuela Romano
Editor: Maria Dolores Porto
Electronic: ISBN: 9789027267221 Pages: Price: Europe EURO 95.00
Electronic: ISBN: 9789027267221 Pages: Price: U.S. $ 143.00
Electronic: ISBN: 9789027267221 Pages: Price: U.K. £ 80.00
Hardback: ISBN: 9789027256676 Pages: Price: U.S. $ 143.00
Hardback: ISBN: 9789027256676 Pages: Price: U.K. £ 80.00
Hardback: ISBN: 9789027256676 Pages: Price: Europe EURO 100.70
Abstract:
This volume offers readers interested in Discourse Analysis and/or
Socio-Cognitive models of language a closer view of the relationship between
discourse, cognition and society by disclosing how the cognitive mechanisms of
discourse processing depend on shared knowledge and situated cognition. An
inter- and multidisciplinary approach is proposed that combines theories and
methodologies coming from Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Multimodal Metaphor
Theory, Critical Discourse Analysis, Narratology, Systemic Functional
Linguistics, Appraisal Theory, together with the most recent developments of
Socio-Cognitive Linguistics, for the analysis of real communicative events,
which range from TV reality shows, commercials, digital stories or political
debates, to technical texts, architectural memorials, newspapers and
autobiographical narratives. Still, several key notions are recurrent in all
contributions -embodiment, multimodality, conceptual integration, metaphor,
and creativity- as the fundamental constituents of discourse processing. It is
only through this wide-ranging epistemological and empirical approach that the
complexity of discourse strategies in real contexts, i.e. human communication,
can be fully comprehended, and that discourse analysis and cognitive
linguistics can be brought closer together.
Apr 23
ChRIS CLÉiRIGhbook publication
Title: Discourse and Responsibility in Professional Settings
Series Title: Studies in Communication in Organisations and Professions
Publication Year: 2016
Publisher: Equinox Publishing Ltd
http://www.equinoxpub.com/
Book URL: https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/discourse-responsibility-professional-settings-edited-jan-ola-ostman
Editor: Jan-Ola Ostman
Editor: Anna Solin
Hardback: ISBN: 9781845539146 Pages: 318 Price: U.S. $ 100 Comment: £60
Paperback: ISBN: 9781845539153 Pages: 318 Price: U.S. $ 29.95 Comment: £19.99
Abstract:
This volume strengthens the case for analysing discourse from the point of
view of discourse participants’ accountability and responsibility. It adds an
important and largely neglected strand to research in discourse studies and
pragmatics by analysing the expression and attribution of responsibility,
particularly in professional discourse.
Debates on social and professional responsibility have proliferated in recent
years both in the public sphere (e.g. in connection with corporate
responsibility reports) and in more local practices (e.g. as manifested in the
publication of in-house codes of conduct). However, there is little academic
research on professional discourse which systematically addresses the ways in
which responsibility relations are construed in language use.
This volume contains a number of case studies focusing on different
professional settings: media, health care and social work. The types of data
examined range from globally available mass-consumed discourse (such as news
agency dispatches) to local and essentially private face-to-face encounters
(such as counselling sessions). The studies examine different linguistic
features (such as reported speech in written texts and backchannelling in
spoken encounters) and different types of meanings (such as agency and
causality). The studies draw on different methodological approaches (mainly
pragmatics, conversation analysis and (critical) discourse analysis). A common
thread running through the contributions is that responsibility is not a
stable quality of people or institutions, but a dynamic and variable resource
that language users negotiate in interaction.
Apr 22
ChRIS CLÉiRIGhbook publication
Title: Conversational Writing
Subtitle: A Multidimensional Study of Synchronous and Supersynchronous
Computer-Mediated Communication
Series Title: English Corpus Linguistics – Band 16
Publication Year: 2016
Publisher: Peter Lang AG
http://www.peterlang.com
Book URL: http://www.peterlang.com/?267153
Author: Ewa Jonsson
Hardback: ISBN: 9783631671535 Pages: 353 Price: U.S. $ 89.95
Hardback: ISBN: 9783631671535 Pages: 353 Price: U.K. £ 55.00
Hardback: ISBN: 9783631671535 Pages: 353 Price: Europe EURO 72.95
Abstract:
The author analyses computer chat as a form of communication. While some forms
of computer-mediated communication (CMC) deviate only marginally from
traditional writing, computer chat is popularly considered to be written
conversation and the most «oral» form of written CMC. This book systematically
explores the varying degrees of conversationality («orality») in CMC, focusing
in particular on a corpus of computer chat (synchronous and supersynchronous
CMC) compiled by the author. The author employs Douglas Biber’s
multidimensional methodology and situates the chats relative to a range of
spoken and written genres on his dimensions of linguistic variation. The study
fills a gap both in CMC linguistics as regards a systematic variationist
approach to computer chat genres and in variationist linguistics as regards a
description of conversational writing.
Contents: Creating and annotating corpora of CMC – Internet relay chat – ICQ –
UCOW – Salient features in conversational writing – Social media analysis –
Orality – Synchronicity of communication – Paralinguistic features and
extra-linguistic content – A systemic-functional approach to computer chat.
Apr 19
ChRIS CLÉiRIGhthesis
Institution: Victoria University of Wellington
Program: School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2015
Author: Jeremy Koay
Dissertation Title: Self-improvement books: A genre analysis
Dissertation URL: https://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/handle/10063/4770
Dissertation Director(s):
Jean Parkinson
Elaine Vine
Dissertation Abstract:
The aim of the thesis is to explore the characteristics of self-improvement
books as a genre. Studies within genre theory tend to have a focus on academic
and professional (e.g., legal, medical) settings, and their goals are mainly
to describe the rhetorical structure and lexicogrammatical features of a
particular genre. Often, interview data is utilised to complement textual
analysis. Although self-improvement books are a widely read genre,
particularly in the Western world, none to my knowledge has examined the
linguistic features of this genre in detail.
The thesis draws on the three main schools of genre theory: English for
Specific Purposes, Systemic Functional Linguistics, and the New Rhetoric, and
begins by investigating the sections (e.g., acknowledgement, introduction
chapter) in self-improvement books and the typicality of the sections.
Focusing on three sections: introduction chapters, body chapters, and ‘about
the author’ sections, I examined how authors structure the sections by
analysing the moves and steps. This study also examined the stories in
self-improvement books by analysing the purpose of the stories and their
structure. To analyse the genre at a register level, the study examined the
most unambiguous aspects of engagement: personal pronouns focusing on you,
imperative clauses, and questions, and the lexicogrammatical feature of
self-improvement book titles. To examine whether the features are unique to
self-improvement book titles, the study compared them to the titles of
historical biographies. Drawing on interview data and literature on the
American Dream, American individualism, Neoliberalism, and New Age beliefs,
the thesis explains the linguistic characteristics of self-improvement books
and how the genre reflects these ideologies.
Forty self-improvement books were selected based on a set of criteria that I
developed, and in various analyses subsets were selected from the main
dataset. The study included ‘specialist informants’ interview data that
consisted of three categories of interviewees: readers of the genre,
non-readers of the genre, and authors of the genre. It is arguable that
non-readers of the genre are not ‘specialist informants’ but in this study
they might provide insights from the other side of the coin.
Paying attention to the obligatory rhetorical moves, move analysis indicated
that the main purpose of introduction chapters, and ‘about the author’
sections are persuading readers to read the book, and establishing
credibility, respectively. Authors always persuade readers to read their books
by listing reasons to read them. The body chapters present the problem that
readers potentially experience, present the authors’ message, recommend
practical applications, and encourage readers to apply them. From a genre
perspective, the purpose of all the stories in my analysis is to illustrate
the authors’ message.
Register analysis, and drawing on interview data, suggests that authors use
the personal pronoun you, imperative clauses, and questions to engage readers.
The abundance of the personal pronoun you, suggests that self-improvement
books are a reader-oriented genre. The analysis of the imperative clauses
using Halliday’s process types suggests that the main way to improve our
lives, the authors recommend, is to change how we think.
Finally, my thesis suggests that the social purpose of self-improvement books
is to help potential readers improve their lives, and the approach of
improving one’s life has an individualistic orientation.
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