Jul 21
ThE CLOwNbook review
AUTHOR: Deborah Cameron
TITLE: Verbal Hygiene
SERIES TITLE: Routledge Linguistics Classics
PUBLISHER: Routledge (Taylor and Francis)
YEAR: 2012
REVIEWER: Noriko Watanabe, Kwansei Gakuin University
SUMMARY
The volume reviewed here is a new edition of Cameron’s (C hereafter) book,
“Verbal Hygiene”, originally published in 1995. As the author mentions in the
Forward of the new edition, the volume’s main text includes no significant
revisions. Added to the old edition are a foreword (17 pages) and an afterword
(26 pages), which give an updated frame to this classic 17 years after its
first publication.
The Foreword begins with C’s definition of verbal hygiene: “the motley
collection of discourses and practices through which people attempt to ‘clean
up’ language and make its structure or its use conform more closely to their
ideals of beauty, truth, efficiency, logic, correctness and civility” (p.vii).
C emphasizes that verbal hygiene is neither wrong nor right, but exists
because the very notion of language and metalinguistic awareness of language
as a system calls for the practice of imposing normativity. C maintains that,
although there have been changes that pertain to language since the last
edition was published (e.g. the emergence of digital experts on language on
the net and the lessened authority of printed media), her thesis has not
changed since 1995. In fact, she has learned that verbal hygiene is even more
pervasive than she originally thought.
Chapter 1 lays out the issues that C discusses in the subsequent chapters. One
issue is the problems of prescriptivism. According to C, prescriptivism is a
type of verbal hygiene. Linguists view all varieties of English as equally
appropriate for certain contexts, and they do not necessarily make value
judgments about regional and social varieties. At the same time, however, C
points out that the philosophy of “leave your language alone” is also
ideological in itself. C sees both of the positions as not escaping
normativity. Attention to normativity is often magnified because linguistic
order stands for order of a different kind. For example, prescriptivism is
deemed important and necessary because it is often claimed that communication
will break down if it is neglected, and if communication breaks down, the
unity of a nation is threatened. The verbal hygiene of prescriptivism
represents, in C’s view, fear of fragmentation.
Chapter 2 points out that style in English can be hyperstandardized and
commodified, and that the ultimate goal of the verbal hygiene of style is not
uniformity and consistency, but financial and professional satisfaction.
Through her analysis of editorial practices of English-language newspapers and
publishers, as well as the genealogy of the modern writing style, C shows that
“stylistic values are symbolic of moral, social, ideological and political
values” (p. 77).
Chapter 3 reviews the grammar reform and the “hysteria” that surrounded the
Education Reform Act of 1988 in the United Kingdom. C considers the grammar
debate to be a case of moral panic, that is, the phenomenon of a social issue
suddenly receiving intense scrutiny accompanied with attributions of moral
significance that project a sense of urgency and distraught emotion. C points
out that conflicting emotions surface in debates about grammar: failure and
humiliation on one hand, and nostalgia about the good old days of order and
certainty on the other. According to C, grammar stands for moral values, and
the debate is generated out of anxiety over the state of British culture in
the context of emergent pluralism. Conservatives have taken the opportunity to
address the fear and anxiety about the state of British culture through
control of the English language and portrayal of the development of diversity
in linguistic matters as fragmentation of the nation. The stakes in the debate
have been multiplied by the emotional and moral implications that are linked
to political and ideological issues. In the debate in question, language
ultimately served to unite conservatives who feared losing support because of
their own fragmentation as a political party. Here, C proposes that linguists
should be involved in such a debate by proposing better alternatives based on
critical examinations of standards and values.
Chapter 4 focuses on concerns over political correctness as acts of verbal
hygiene. C discusses various debates over political correctness, including
feminist crusades for non-sexist language and controversy over racially
discriminatory expressions. In C’s view, political correctness politicizes
language, and makes it impossible not to offend someone; liberals accuse
people of violating the contract that there is a fixed, word-to-world
relationship, and conservatives accuse political correctness of abusing and
prescribing our relationship with language by restricting freedom of word
meaning. What is behind the tension between political correctness and its
opponents is the question of how a society with diverse points of view and
customs can communicate and possibly share common cultures. This chapter
introduces the idea that a perfect language, in which everyone agrees on what
certain words mean, is almost impossible. As a result of indeterminacy of
meaning, it all comes down to whose meaning prevails and who can be the
authority of word semantics.
Chapter 5 examines advice to women on how to use language. The coaching
literature teaches women to be more “effective” workers, leaders, and partners
in relationships with men. C analyzes the emergence of advice to women as
essentially portraying women as being different from men. It assumes
individual women should change their ways of behaving and use language so that
they can be more like men, or get along with men, for whom there is no need
for change. Aside from the coaching literature, the author’s dissatisfaction
comes from popular literature that is marketed as books on communication
between men and women. As an example, C points out that the readers of Debora
Tannen’s popular book “You Just Don’t Understand” liked reading it not because
it will change the way women speak, or challenge the dichotomy of women and
men’s speech, but because they could find themselves in the book and indulge
in the camaraderie that stories about frustrating communication with men
bring.
Chapter 6 inquires about the functions of verbal hygiene in society. The
intensity with which verbal hygiene is pursued raises questions about the
motives for the quest. C traces the motives to a desire for order and a fear
of disorder. She further states that it is not possible to eliminate verbal
hygiene, but it is possible to tame irrational impulses. C is critical of
linguists’ views that all language usages are equal and that it is natural to
have language change because these views certainly ignore ubiquitous acts of
verbal hygiene, such as correcting grammar and attaching social meanings to
certain forms. In C’s view, rationalization of correctness and normativity is
inevitable, and thus, she questions why linguists assert that such indexical
meanings do not exist.
In the Afterword, C comments on developments since the last edition was
published in 1995: technological advances, which have resulted in the
proliferation of non-standard language in the digital world; a semantic shift
of the term “political correctness”; brain-based accounts of gender
differences, which C terms “neurosexism”; and acts of verbal hygiene that
globalization brings.
EVALUATION
“Verbal Hygiene” is a major work in sociolinguistics that addresses the
critical issue of the relationship between English and its users. It documents
a wide range of activities with which English users in the United Kingdom
attempt to control others to conform to their ideal ways of using the
language. In turn, verbal hygiene is motivated by concerns of a different
dimension, such as political stance or fear of disorder. The author gives
careful thought to case studies of language-related arguments and the politics
that underpin and fuel emotionally charged responses to them. Much of C’s
analyses are applicable to discursive interventions at the metalinguistic and
metapragmatic levels in other modern societies with standardized language,
printed media, and formal education. For this reason, the theoretical
implications of the book go beyond English. Verbal hygiene is closely related
to research on language ideologies (Silverstein 1979, Schieffelin, Woolard &
Kroskrity 1998) and, to some extent, Language Management Theory (Jernudd &
Neustupný 1987, Spolsky 2009), as C acknowledges in the Foreword of the new
edition. While the literature on language ideologies also describes and
discusses heated arguments over languages in which such ideologies are
emergent, C’s book does an excellent job of capturing the psychological
aspects of the hygienic acts and the fastidiousness which originates in
emotional linkage to language. Thus, C’s work highlights how and why arguments
about language often turn into emotionally intense bickering.
One drawback of the way C analyzes verbal hygiene phenomena is that she tends
to focus heavily on explicitly articulated language ideologies and
metalinguistic commentaries. Even though C says that she is interested in the
public’s concerns over language, many of the examples come from published
material and comments of experts in the media, such as editors, authors,
activists, educators, politicians, newspaper columnists, and other linguists.
At times, more detailed data that can support C’s points seem to be missing.
For example, when she discusses a dispute over a particular incident at an
American university regarding whether the use of the words “water buffalo” was
racist, C interprets and imagines what the offended party must have thought
instead of finding support from newspaper articles or interviews (pp.
157-158). In addition, there is no reference given for the incident, and it is
not clear how C learned about it.
There are several interesting theoretical questions the book raises that are
still relevant 17 years after its original publication. The first question is
whether sociolinguistics should be socially engaged. C explicitly questions
the attitudes of linguists who refrain from making judgments on emergent
language matters because of their opposition to what she calls
“prescriptivism”. To C, it is a contradiction that linguists oppose
prescriptivism, while subscribing to the principle of non-involvement as if it
were a prescribed rule for them. In his review of C’s 1995 edition, Milroy
(1997) states that C’s characterization of linguistics here is not fair
because the field of linguistics is populated with scholars whose academic
interests are diverse, and because those who study various subfields of
linguistics are not engaged in norm-making, nor are they interested in making
prescriptive comments to the public on issues of language. Milroy may have a
point about the limitations of C’s view of linguistics, but the question here
is the extent to which linguistics should be constructed as socially relevant
and whether linguists should be engaged with the public when language is at
the center of controversy in the political arena. C is dissatisfied with and
disagrees with the vision of linguistics as it is. In other words, C would
like to propose a change in what linguists think they should do and urge them
to reexamine how linguistics should be conceived in relation to the public and
its concerns. That is an ambitious enterprise.
Although linguists should not forget nor choose to ignore that their research
agendas exist within a broader intellectual frame, including the value system
on which society is built, how linguists engage with society is complicated.
One major point C makes is that she believes in “rational” and “informed”
debates about language matters and that linguists should offer input to
debates over language issues. As she so clearly points out, however, arguments
about language tend to be linked to moral values, and if this recognition of
what language ideologies are is taken seriously, there should be no surprise
that the definition of ‘rational’ has extremely fuzzy boundaries. In fact, at
the end of the present edition, she remarks that her confidence in the public
engaging in rational discussions on politicized linguistic issues is waning,
to some extent (pp. 262-263).
“Verbal Hygiene” is indeed thought-provoking, but there is one issue C
discusses in her Afterword that could have been developed further, possibly
into an additional chapter for the new edition: the issue of the role of
English itself in the increasingly multilingual, borderless world. In her
Afterword, she presents stimulating discussions on how verbal hygiene is used
to manage problems that are brought on by diversity and globalization. For
example, C makes a reference to TV commentator and historian David Starkey’s
linking of speaking Jafaican, a variety of English originating in
multicultural neighborhoods in London, to a 2011 riot. In addition, C
discusses that speaking English is taken as a proof of subscribing to certain
political views and cultural values: English is constructed and conceived as
unifying the country, being modern, democratic, and rational, while other
languages such as Arabic are implicated as “irrational” (pp. 239-243). This is
reminiscent of the issues she examined in Chapter 3, but is reinterpreted in
the emergent context of the post-9/11 era. C’s closer examination of such
issues is likely to be productive.
Overall, “Verbal Hygiene” successfully makes its case that people’s
involvement with language matters is indeed unavoidable and that verbal
hygiene is a pervasive phenomenon. The second edition is merited because the
theoretical issues the book raises are still relevant and worth discussing,
although the present reviewer would have liked C to have added a chapter on
English in the age of globalization and plurilingualism.
REFERENCES
Jernudd, B. H. & Neustupný, J. V. 1987. “Language plannning: For whom?” In L.
Laforge (ed.), Actes du Colloque international sur l’aménagement linguistique
/ Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Language Planning. Québec:
Les Presses de L’Université Laval, 69–84.
Milroy, James. 1997 Review of “Verbal Hygiene” by Deborah Cameron 1995,
London: Routledge, Journal of Sociolinguistics, 1/1, 127–133.
Schieffelin, Bambi.B., Woolard, Kathryn.A., & Kroskrity, Paul.V. (eds.) 1998
Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory. New York: Oxford University Press.
Silverstein, Michael. 1979 “Language structure and linguistic ideology.” The
Elements: A Parasession on Linguistic Units and Levels. ed. Paul R. Clyne,
William F. Hanks, and Carol L. Hofbauer, Chicago Linguistic Society. 193–247.
Spolsky, B. 2009. Language Management. New York: Cambridge University Press.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Noriko Watanabe holds a Ph.D. in linguistics and has taught Japanese and
English at universities in the United States and Japan. Her research
interests include writing systems, language ideologies, and narrative
discourse.
Jul 20
ChRIS CLÉiRIGhbook review
EDITOR: Roberta Piazza
EDITOR: Monika Bednarek
EDITOR: Fabio Rossi
TITLE: Telecinematic Discourse
SUBTITLE: Approaches to the language of films and television series
SERIES TITLE: Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 211
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2011
REVIEWER: Julia Gillen, Lancaster University
SUMMARY
This collection of articles approaches an area of media studies relatively
rarely examined by linguists. A variety of approaches are taken to the
language of films and television series across British, American and Italian
cultures. The authors offer a variety of methodologies and perspectives on the
complexities of telecinematic discourse — more specifically, films, film
trailers and television series. One key theme taken up in several chapters is
that spoken dialogues of such genres have to differ from spontaneous discourse
at every linguistic level to be acceptable; authentic rhythms, content, and a
lack of teleological efficacy of everyday talk would not be tolerated. Yet at
the same time, an impression of verisimilitude has to be established in the
audience’s minds to enable a degree of suspension of disbelief. How such
dilemmas are realised in different genres is one significant focus of the
work, as are the ways in which individual characters can be differentiated.
The authors all argue that when working from a linguistic basis, it is
necessary to combine analyses that attend to other modes and offer diverse,
always detailed, demonstrations of their empirical work.
Chapter 1. Introduction: Analysing telecinematic discourse
Roberta Piazza, Monika Bednarek and Fabio Rossi
This chapter, by the editors, sets out to differentiate the two media
discourses studied — that of cinematic film and TV series. Four key issues
are identified: the relationship between represented and interactive
participants; the interface between the verbal and visual; the definition of
characters; and the relationship between real life and fictional discourses.
The authors explain and illustrate how the re-creation or re-presentation of
the world ”is always in line with the specific socio-cultural conventions of
the society in which telecinematic texts are produced. It is also in line
with a particular ‘media logic’ (Iedema 2001: 187) which differentiates these
products….” (p. 9). This sets the agenda for the following chapters, which
take different approaches to identifying and analysing how media logic
operates in specific examples.
Part I. Cinematic discourse
Chapter 2. Discourse analysis of film dialogues: Italian comedy between
linguistic realism and pragmatic non-realism
Fabio Rossi
Rossi demonstrates how the dubbed audio track featured not just in foreign
films, but also in Italian films, compares with spontaneous real-life talk. He
finds that film genres display fewer characteristics of spontaneous speech
such as redundancy, hesitation, overlap, etc., and show a higher degree of
coherence and cohesion. However, this aligns with audience expectations; just
as camera conventions are not naturalistic, but become expected, the
introduction of an ”excess of realism” would be jarring to the viewer.
Chapter 3. Using film as linguistic specimen: Theoretical and practical issues
Michael Álvarez-Pereyre
The author demonstrates how the very qualities that differentiate film
discourse from spontaneous real-life talk make it suitable for pedagogical
purposes. He points out that the objection that dialogues in films are
different from spontaneous speech is to ignore that substantial proportions of
language as it is encountered are not spontaneous. Thus, Álvarez-Pereyre
further develops investigation of, what he terms, ‘filmspeak’ as a genre.
Chapter 4. Multimodal realisations of mind style in Enduring Love
Rocío Montoro
‘Mind style’ is a stylistics term referring to the ”linguistic features that
project the peculiarities of characters’ cognitive make-up,” (p. 70) in the
author’s explanation. Here, Montoro extends the traditional language-based
approach of stylistics into a multimodal approach. She combines the analysis
of verbal signs as ”mind style indicators” (p. 69) with the analysis of
gestures and camera perspectives. Montoro aims to increase our sensitivity to
how qualities of characterisation achieved in the novel ”Enduring Love” are
skilfully realised in the film adaptation of the same name, including through
the use of camera angles and gesture.
Chapter 5. Pragmatic deviance in realist horror films: A look at films by
Argento and Fincher
Roberta Piazza
As is the case with other authors in this volume, Piazza is particularly
interested in how unconventional characters are depicted, here, in the genre
of ”realist horror” or ”slashers.” He demonstrates how deviance,
characteristic of horror films, is communicated through violation of Gricean
cooperative maxims. As the book exemplifies as a whole, this chapter
endeavours to offer an approach to film studies ”rooted in linguistic
stylistics” (p. 86) and, through painstaking work, to demonstrate the
benefits of this. That is, rather than offer a broad critique of the films,
Piazza considers very short sections intensively, examining the pragmatics of
language used against all elements of the multimodal realisation. It is shown
how in this genre the killers infringe the maxim of relevance, thus presenting
themselves to the audience as abnormal.
Chapter 6. Emotion and empathy in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas : A case study
of the “funny guy” scene
Derek Bousfield and Dan McIntyre
The authors take a pragmatic approach to examining linguistic, paralinguistic
and kinesic manifestations of fear, seen as deriving from a lack of empathy
between two characters. The careful analysis of a two minute and 30 second
scene includes a multimodal transcript, likely to be helpful as a model to
others investigating both linguistic and non-linguistic features of film. They
demonstrate how the emotion of fear is realised in the complex interplay of
modes.
Chapter 7. Quantifying the emotional tone of James Bond films: An application
of the Dictionary of Affect in Language
Rose Ann Kozinski
Kozinski shows how the language of ”official” James Bond films differs from
Austin Powers parodies in the expression of emotionality. She deploys the
Dictionary of Affect in Language (Whissell 2009) to enable quantitative
analysis. The parodies adopt a distinctive tone she terms ”pleasant and
active”, whereas the Bond films demonstrate greater variety over time. Their
tone relates partly to the specific actor and partly according to temporal
cycles of variation in plot.
Chapter 8. Structure and function in the generic staging of film trailers: A
multimodal analysis
Carmen Daniela Maier
This chapter demonstrates an approach to the analysis of comedy film trailers
through examining their narrative structure. The author creates a framework
for investigation drawing on the work of Labov & Waletzky (1967). Applying
this reveals how all the nine stages of the prototypical comedy film trailer
contribute to the purpose of promotion, some implicitly and some explicitly.
Each stage is also associated with certain kinds of information given and
functions. Each specific trailer varies in how many of the stages are used and
their precise sequencing, but overall the model appears robust.
Part II. Televisual discourse
Chapter 9. “I don’t know what they’re saying half the time, but I’m hooked on
the series”: Incomprehensible dialogue and integrated multimodal
characterisation in The Wire
Michael Toolan
This chapter combines quantitative and qualitative analyses of TV series texts
with audience research. Toolan makes use of Kozloff’s (2000) idea of
”linguistic opacity” as part of the aesthetics of the TV series,
demonstrating how a strategy of deliberately inducing comprehension problems
in the audience is, at first sight, paradoxically, one of the means through
which the audience is engaged. So the police officers’ struggles to interpret
the gang’s intercepted communications involve the audience in this process.
Toolan ends by examining how dialogues are embedded multimodally and explains
how, for many viewers, this work was exceptional in conveying psychological
depth and sociological plausibility.
Chapter 10. The stability of the televisual character: A corpus stylistic case
study
Monika Bednarek
Stability of characterisation is usually assumed to be important to TV series,
i.e., that they do not change drastically over time. Using a corpus
linguistics approach, Bednarek demonstrates how stability of characterisation
is achieved, while still permitting the character some room for stylistic
differentiation, important for engaging the audience. Central to her
investigation of the ”Gilmore Girls” are analyses of a character’s
diachronic language variation across seasons and variation according to
interlocutor. For example, a term may appear far more frequently in earlier
episodes as the audience is encouraged to identify a character’s likes and
dislikes, but can later become more implied as the character has become more
established.
Chapter 11. Star Trek: Voyager’s Seven of Nine: A case study of language and
character in a televisual text
Susan Mandala
Here, the development of a character through a TV series, an essential part of
the plot, is shown to be achieved in large measure through changes in
(im)politeness strategies. In this case, the character focussed upon makes a
journey from cyborg to near-human, linguistically realised through adaptation
to politeness norms. For example, her early lack of negative politeness (Brown
& Levinson 1987) is gradually modified as she mitigates face-threating acts.
Chapter 12. Relationship impression formation: How viewers know people on the
screen are friends
Claudia Bubel
Using conversation analysis, Bubel investigates alignment patterns among four
central characters of the TV series Sex and the City. The specific interest is
the negotiation of friendship through shifting alignment patterns and
interpersonal affiliation/disaffiliation. In analysing shifting alignment
patterns Bubel considers both the negotiation of intersubjectivity and the
display of common cultural attitudes. She also illustrates the ways in which,
during conversation the four central characters affiliate with, for example,
one other and thus disaffiliate, at least momentarily, with at least one
other.
Chapter 13. Genre, performance and Sex and the City
Brian Paltridge, Angela Thomas and Jianxin Liu
Drawing on Butler’s (2004) notion of performativity, the authors analyse how
gendered identities are performed through the genre of casual conversation. A
major issue here is multimodality: non-linguistic modes of expression
belonging to the character such as dress and gesture are significant, as well
as the means by which these are framed. This chapter links strongly with the
last in providing theorised readings of this TV show that, for many, was a
significant cultural event.
Chapter 14. Bumcivilian: Systemic aspects of humorous communication in
comedies
Alexander Brock
Brock explores the creation of humour at various levels of language in terms
of linguistic deviance or incongruity by discussing a wide variety of
examples. He shows how incongruity can reside at any level of language, for
example, phonological, semantic or in the construction of an alternative
reading of the world. Brock demonstrates how incongruities can become
predictable, thus endangering the effect of humour. He concludes that the
development of a more complex understanding of humour is needed.
EVALUATION
This is a genuinely innovative collection of texts, examining aspects of media
discourse from a variety of different linguistics-based approaches. I can
imagine that a number of the chapters will be much cited as they lead to
promising directions of further investigation. However, I do own to two
questions that keep lingering as I have read and then re-read this book,
wondering how best to communicate its qualities to prospective readers. I want
to achieve something more useful in an evaluation than a mere reflection of my
own subjective responses to the chapters, grounded in my personal experiences.
I find it difficult to move far from my subjective responses with what became
my first major question: Is it necessary for the reader to have engaged with
the particular film or TV series in question in order to relate to the
chapters, and does a depth of engagement (i.e. in practice a liking for the
film or TV series) help? I have to admit that in general, I did often more
vividly appreciate the authors’ approaches when I was already familiar with
the media product. So, for example, my own strong positive responses to ”The
Wire”, ”Sex and the City” and ”Star Trek: Voyager” assisted my
understandings of some of the chapters about TV series. In particular,
Toolan’s multifaceted approach to the language of ”The Wire” seemed
extremely informative and original. When I was not familiar with the topic, I
sometimes struggled to understand the authors’ points. For example, it was
completely reasonable of Piazza, Bednarek and Rossi to illustrate their
introductory arguments in Chapter 1 through an extract from ”No Country for
Old Men,” a 2007 Coen brothers film, as a substantial proportion of likely
readers may be assumed to have seen it. As it happens, I regret to admit I
have not. For me, the extract the authors chose to discuss seemed hackneyed
and lifeless. Two unsubtle pieces of characterisation jump off the page as
indicative of psychopathic travelling baddie first encountering a hapless,
defenceless victim. I emphasise, of course, that this is no comment against
the film, but rather a reference to how the text seemed narrow and clichéd to
me when unfamiliar with the full multimodal presentation. As a result, I
doubtless lost something in my understanding of the discussion.
Yet, to return to my original question, it was not always the case that
familiarity with the media product led to my learning more from or further
appreciating the chapters. Rossi’s chapter, working with dubbing in
mid-twentieth century Italian films, conveyed fascinating insights into the
nature of film language. There are many very good chapters in the book; each
possesses some good qualities, but space precludes me from writing a proper
appreciation of them all. In my opinion, Rossi’s and Toolan’s chapters were
the most informative, multifaceted and enjoyable to read. Toolan’s energy in
combining a number of different approaches positively fizzes off the page.
Through willingness to combine methods including audience research, he wisely
avoided the presumption of homogeneity of reception, that for me at the very
least flavoured some interpretations in other chapters.
My second question remains one that still genuinely puzzles me. For me, there
is a glaring dividing line between the two approaches taken in the book. Did
the editors expect this dichotomy to emerge? The issue here is between two
approaches to telecinematic discourse. The first approach, that is most
clearly introduced by the editors, and exemplified in most chapters, is an
explicit recognition of the crafted nature of telecinematic discourse. Both
Rossi and Toolan, among others, never lose sight of the artificiality of the
media product. All authors, whether explicitly or implicitly, contribute
insights into how scripts are written and become effective. However, some tend
to occlude attention to the realised character as crafted, and instead analyse
the language of characters virtually as if they were real. Personal intentions
and communicative means through which they are pursued are ascribed to the
character herself or himself. There is always some reference to the context as
a media product, but nonetheless, I felt the tone to be very different from
the more dominant recognition of media product as craft. I regret that the
editors did not choose to discuss this issue and matters arising — a
concluding chapter could have been fascinating.
In sum, this is a thought-provoking book, appropriate for those who wish to
experiment with diverse approaches to media discourse from linguistic
perspectives that take account of other modalities. The editors and publishers
have done an excellent job of presentation; the texts are enhanced by careful
figures and tables, and the composite index is admirable.
REFERENCES
Brown, Penelope & Stephen Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some universals in
language useage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Butler, Judith. 2004. Undoing gender. New York: Routledge.
Iedema, Rick. 2001. Analysing film and television: a social semiotic account
of Hospital: an unhealthy business. In van Leeuwen, T. & Jewitt, C. Handbook
of visual analysis. London: Sage (183-204).
Kozloff, Sarah. 2000. Overhearing film dialogue. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Labov, William & Joshua Waletzky. 1967. Narrative analysis: oral versions of
personal experience. In J. Helm (ed). Essays on the verbal and visual arts.
Seattle: American Ethnological Society (12-44).
Whissell, Cynthia 2009. Using the revised Dictionary of Affect in Language to
quantify the emotional undertones of samples of natural language.
Psychological Reports 102: 469-483.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Julia Gillen is Senior Lecturer in Digital Literacies in the Literacy Research
Centre and Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster
University, UK. Her teaching responsibilities include supervising
dissertations in language and the media and convening an undergraduate course
called Understanding Media. She researches language in multimodal
interaction, approached through a sociocultural perspective. Fields of study
include: virtual worlds; Twitter; early childhood; sports journalism and the
Edwardian postcard.
Jul 20
ChRIS CLÉiRIGhbook review
AUTHOR: Nicholas J. Enfield
TITLE: The Anatomy of Meaning
SUBTITLE: Speech, Gesture, and Composite Utterances
SERIES TITLE: Language Culture and Cognition 8
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press
YEAR: 2012
REVIEWER: Katharine Parton, University of Melbourne
SUMMARY
This book analyzes utterances which occur using both speech and gesture.
Enfield argues that speech and gesture can be, in his examples, understood as
co-occurring signs which, in that co-occurrence, become composite utterances,
and as such, carry new, composite meanings. Enfield explores this perspective
on gesture and speech composite utterances through examples from speakers of
Lao, focusing first on pointing gestures with speech, and then examining
illustrative gestures with their co-occurring talk. He argues that in order to
understand social interaction and the meanings that people create with and for
one another in each interaction, it is the composite utterance (i.e. the
gesture plus speech) that needs to form the basis of interactional analysis.
In the book’s opening chapter Enfield argues that meaning’s genesis, following
a neo-Peircean semiotic and neo-Gricean pragmatic perspective, is not
language. Rather, language forms one part of the complexity of signs that
create meaning between people. Enfield first lays out examples of composite
utterances across a variety of modalities. He posits that meaning across
examples from artwork, such as paintings, requires an examination of visual
aspects and titles of paintings to understand the meaning the artist intends.
A photograph of a historically significant moment demonstrates that the
meaning of the photographic semiotic whole only becomes apparent when the
complexity of the photograph’s historical and social context is identified,
and thus, that meaning itself is composite in nature. Enfield goes on to
position his analysis of speech and gesture as signs within both gesture and
semiotic research.
The remaining chapters are grouped into two parts: the first deals with
deictic components of moves and the second with illustrative components of
moves. Enfield examines demonstratives, lip-pointing and hand-pointing as
deictic components and includes modeling, diagramming and editing in the
illustrative moves he discusses.
Chapter 2, on demonstratives, uses data from video-recorded interactions
between Lao speakers in a variety of face-to-face, naturally occurring
situations, from market places to riverside discussions. Enfield focuses on
the Lao system of spatial proximity description, arguing that, through an
examination of the speaker’s gestures, the two-term system ‘nii4’ and ‘nan4’,
previously defined as ‘proximal’ and ‘distal’, should be seen as
context-dependent and descriptive of social interactional space relations
rather than as a binary, static distinction. He argues that these
demonstratives rely on both semantic and pragmatic meaning for interactional
deployment, and as such, are composite utterances. Chapter 2 argues that the
meaning of ‘nii4’ and ‘nan4’ can be seen as constructed by interactants,
through the use of demonstratives, to create ‘engagement areas’ and
‘here-spaces’, which form the basis of Enfield’s analysis. He further argues
that these areas/spaces and ‘co-constructing’ uses of ‘nii4’ and ‘nan4’ are
conventionalized and predictable and that they are locally constructed with
fluid meaning, depending on the interaction and interactional space.
In opening Chapter 3, Enfield problematizes the labeling of so-called
‘lip-pointing’. He shows that it is a widely occurring phenomenon studied in
linguistics and gesture studies across a number of languages and geographical
locations. Chapter 3 surveys a number of lip-pointing examples from a variety
of languages, allowing Enfield to argue that lip-pointing rarely, if ever,
involves only the lips. Interactions between Lao speakers are again shown
using stills from video of speakers’ interactions, with a focus on the
relationships between lip-pointing and co-occurring hand-pointing and gaze
direction (both matched and mismatched with lip-pointing directionality).
Enfield concludes that the lip-pointing practice in Lao is used to describe
the location of referents, and, when combined with other deictic practices,
can result in varying interactional purposes.
Following the chapter on lip-pointing, Chapter 4 provides an account of an
empirical study of hand-pointing across Lao speakers. Here, the data comes
from both Lao interactions and semi-structured interviews eliciting pointing
gestures. Enfield argues that Big and Small (i.e. B-point and S-point)
gestures have different functions within Lao social interactions, but that
both types of gestures and the gestures’ co-occurring speech should be
considered as fundamentally composite utterances.
Part II of “The Anatomy of Meaning” focuses on the illustrative components of
moves using longer extracts of interaction (again, video-recorded) along with
transcriptions, including images taken from the recordings. The examples in
Chapter 5 are descriptions of the fishing equipment used locally and the
examples in Chapter 7 are explanations of kinship systems and marriage
practices within those kinship systems. Chapter 6 uses both kinship and
fishing examples.
In Chapter 5, Enfield discusses examples of descriptions of fishing equipment,
showing that the gestures which co-occur with the verbal descriptions model
the actual, physical equipment and its use. Supporting one of the main thrusts
of the book, the verbal description alone is insufficient to understand the
appearance and functionality of the fishing equipment, and therefore, the
speech and gesture must be understood, Enfield argues, as composite to access
the full meaning of the utterance. Further, he shows that these modeling
gestures are both combinatoric and linear in interactional uses. He argues for
a predominance of two handed symmetry in the first stage of the gesture
sequence, followed by one hand taking over the representation of the first
stage, while the other hand is able to manipulate what the first hand is now
‘standing for’. As such, Enfield argues that meaning from the composite
utterance is built over several gestural moves in a linear fashion.
Enfield builds on the modeling examples to put forward an argument that Lao
speakers use the body and gestures as cognitive artifacts. In Chapter 6, he
first gives a comprehensive overview of Lao kinship systems and the rules
governing marriage within that community. He then uses the examples of kinship
diagramming over both speech and gesture to argue that not only are the bodies
and gestures cognitive artifacts, but that they are, in fact, separate
cognitive artifacts because the gestures have existence, in these examples,
which outlasts their physical performance.
An argument Enfield continues in the next chapter (Chapter 7), on ‘Editing’,
is that the gesturers can return to the site of earlier gestures in order to
manipulate the diagrams as they were ‘drawn’. Enfield gives a limited typology
of the types of editing that gesturers perform (p. 220) and calls for further
research on the editing practices of gestures that interact with gestural
diagrams in this way.
EVALUATION
Enfield’s book positions itself as research on meaning, specifically, the
‘unification of meaning’, and he argues for understanding component signs
within interactional moves as parts of wholes which must taken together when
analyzing interaction. As such, “The Anatomy of Meaning” is an invaluable
resource for anyone working on how interactants create, maintain or change and
transmit meaning within interactions, whether these are face-to-face, heavily
gestural, or otherwise. However, given the book’s focus on the gestural, it
would potentially be helpful to readers of this research if videos of the
interactions analyzed were made available by the publishers, perhaps online,
to complement the transcriptions and images in the printed book.
Enfield’s book has obvious relevance for gesture studies as a whole; first,
because it argues for the importance of gesture in any interactional analysis,
and second, because of the specific types of gestures described and analyzed
across several chapters. The chapters on diagramming and editing hold
particular interest for researchers in cognition, whether it be from a social
or distributed perspective. The in-depth analysis of the previously-called
proximal/distal ‘nii4’ and ‘nan4’ system shows a fascinating insight into how
descriptive linguistics could use gesture to more accurately delve into the
meanings of various linguistic features in all languages.
Obviously, “The Anatomy of Meaning” gives significant insight into Lao
speakers’ cultural practices in its discussion of kinship and fishing
practices, and as such, would be of great relevance to anthropologists and
linguists working in that area. Its focus on kinship diagramming opens a line
of inquiry into the describing of kinship practices across linguistic (and
cultural) variation, which should be of interest to anyone studying kinship
terms, organization, and marriage practices, both within communities of Lao
speakers and cross-culturally.
Enfield’s book calls for further research on a number of points he raises
within his analysis and argumentation and this call needs to be answered from
researchers across semiotics and meaning, gesture studies, anthropology,
typology and descriptive linguistics, as well as those engaging in the study
of interaction and cognition.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Katharine Parton is a PhD candidate in the School of Languages & Linguistics
at the University of Melbourne. Her research examines interaction in
orchestral rehearsal, focussing on gesture. Her broader research interests
include epistemics, social cognition, gesture and social interaction.
Jul 20
ChRIS CLÉiRIGhbook review
EDITOR: Carol Berkenkotter
EDITOR: Vijay K. Bhatia
EDITOR: Maurizio Gotti
TITLE: Insights into Academic Genres
SERIES TITLE: Linguistic Insights – Volume 160
PUBLISHER: Peter Lang AG
YEAR: 2012
REVIEWER: Pejman Habibie, University of Western Ontario
SUMMARY
“Insights into Academic Genres” brings together selected papers originally
presented at the conference on “Genre Variation in English Academic
Communication: Emerging Trends and Disciplinary Insights” in Bergamo on 23-25
June 2011. The volume consists of twenty-one chapters that are grouped into
four thematic sections: “Theoretical Insights,” “Presenting Research
Insights,” “Reviewing and Popularizing Research Insights,” and “Insights into
Pedagogic Genres.” There is a “notes on contributors” part at the end of the
volume.
In the introduction chapter, Gotti, Berkenkotter, and Bhatia present an
overview of the concept of genre including the significance and status of
genre and genre analysis, recent perspectives in genre theory and genre
studies, and diversity of methodological tools for specialized genre analysis.
The final part of the chapter outlines a summary of the contents of this
volume.
The two chapters in Section One, “Theoretical Insights,” address the most
relevant and recent issues and innovations in various areas of research into
academic genres. In the first chapter of this section, “Genre change in the
digital age: Questions about dynamism, affordances, evolution,” Carol
Berkenkotter investigates genre variation in an emerging digital genre in
academic communication, namely the blog. She argues that different
perspectives on generic variation depend on the theorist’s conceptual
framework and disciplinary training. Affordances, uptake, dynamism, and stance
are proposed as the criteria for evaluating the generic status of online
blog-posts. The next part of the chapter reports an analysis of stance
markers in blog posts.
The second chapter in this section, “Interdiscursivity in academic genre,”
deals with interdiscursivity in two academic genres, the doctoral thesis and
the research article. Vijiay Bhatia highlights how research articles are
discursively constructed based on doctoral theses and how an understanding of
interdiscursivity sheds light on underlying communicative processes of these
genres. He suggests a critical approach to genre analysis, in which not only
text-internal, but also text-external factors as well as interdiscursivity are
taken into account. He argues that such an approach clarifies the challenges
that emerging writers encounter for submitting their research articles to
international journals.
The chapters in Section Two, “Presenting Research Insights,” address genres
that report research results such as the research article, the conference
presentation, and the Ph.D. dissertation. The paper “Value marking in an
academic genre: When authors signal goodness,” by David Giannoni, addresses
value marking in the research article. Giannoni focuses on the embededness of
values in the research article and their linguistic representations in this
academic genre. In this corpus-based study, a combination of qualitative and
quantitative procedures, concordance data, and manual investigation are
employed to analyze explicit goodness-marking lexis in a corpus of 100
research articles. The findings of this study indicate that “goodness” is more
common in social sciences due to the value-laden nature of these disciplines
The next chapter, “Such a reaction would spread all over the cell like a
forest fire: A corpus study of argument by analogy in scientific discourse,”
reports a study of argument by analogy conducted in a corpus linguistics
framework. In this chapter, Davide Mazzi analyzes the use of discursive
resources, indicating argument by analogy in a corpus of scientific discourse.
He adopts van Eemeren and Grootendorst’s (1992, p. 97) view of analogy as the
point of reference and uses a corpus of 140 authentic medico-scientific
research articles published in 14 specialized journals. The findings indicate
a high frequency of this technique the “Results” and “Discussion” sections and
highlight its significant status and argumentative and reinforcing functions
in discursive practices of medico-scientific writers.
The next chapter, “Exploring generic integrity and variation: Research
articles in two English-medium interactional applied economics journals,”
deals with generic integrity and variation in the research article. In this
genre-based research, Pilar Mur-Duenas focuses on intrageneric and
intradisciplinary variation in research articles published in English in two
international applied economics journals. The research aims to shed light on
discursive practices of scholars as they calibrate their writing conventions
according to different publication sites. The results highlight the
significance of the site of publication and its influence on writing for
scholarly publication practices of scholars.
In chapter six, “Generic integrity in jurisprudence and philosophy of law:
Metadiscursive strategies for expressing dissent within constraints of
collegiality,” William Bromwich examines generic integrity conventions in the
domain of jurisprudence and philosophy of law. Taking Bhatia’s genre-oriented
perspective (1993, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2007), he investigates how authors
working in competing frameworks draw on metadiscursive devices such as
evaluative lexis and markers to indicate their stance on different issues, and
challenge research findings of other members of their discourse communities on
the one hand, and avoid dialogic frictions, and observe collegiality codes
with their colleagues, on the other hand. The corpus includes the complete
series of papers published in the “International Journal of Jurisprudence and
Philosophy of Law” in 2009-2011.
Chapter seven, “The title of my paper is…: Introducing the topic in
conference presentations,” addresses topic introduction in conference
presentations. Francisco Javier Fernandez Polo argues that although topic
introduction is redundant at the beginning of a conference presentation, this
move still plays a significant part in conference presentations . Moreover,
the study aims to investigate the intertextual relationship between topic
announcement and the title slide and to shed light on the structure and
constituent linguistic features of this move. The corpus of the study includes
the introductory sections of 31 conference presentations in English.
Chapter eight, “Why do we have to write? : Practice-based theses in the visual
and performing arts and the place of writing,” deals with practice-based
theses in the fields of visual and performing arts. Drawing on data from
interviews, surveys, and institutional documentation and guidelines,
Starfield, Paltridge, and Ravielli adopt a textographical approach (Swales,
1998a, 1998b) to investigate the place of writing, and explore written
constituent components of practice-based doctorates in those fields.
Chapter nine, “A genre analysis of Japanese and English introductory chapters
of literature Ph.D. theses,” is part of a larger on-going genre study of the
doctoral dissertation. In this chapter, Masumi Ono investigates generic
structures in the thesis introductory chapters of Ph.D. dissertations in the
field of literature, comparing English and Japanese. Ninety-nine introductory
chapters of literature Ph.D. theses are analyzed. The results indicate
cross-cultural differences in number, frequency, and obligatory status of
constituent steps of this genre.
The chapters in Section Three, “Reviewing and Popularizing Research Insights,”
deal with genres that are not used for reporting innovative findings, but are
reviewed in academic discussions and disseminated among colleagues in the
academic community.
In chapter ten, “The move structure of academic theatre reviews,” Anna
Stermieri investigates the academic theater review. Drawing on Swales’ (1990)
and Bhatia’s (1993; 2004) theoretical models, she analyzes the schematic move
structure of this under-researched genre and examines various aspects of
diachronic variation over a period of a decade (1991-2001). The underlying
hypothesis of this study is that the conditions in which the critic operates
and any probable fluctuations in these conditions will influence the critics’
performance and consequently their writing practices. The corpus of this study
includes 67 academic theater reviews that appeared in six academic journals.
Chapter eleven, “The dissemination of scientific knowledge in academia,”
examines two related genres. Comparing research abstracts (as a formal
academic genre) and their derived science reports (as a popular mixed genre),
Susan Kermas looks at the differences between these genres and investigate the
role of redrafting strategies in the popularization of scientific and academic
knowledge. This study indicates how the interconnection between topic and
readership determines lexical and linguistic features in each of these genres.
In chapter twelve, “Blurred genres: Hybrid functions in the medical field,”
Isabel Herrando-Rodrigo contrasts medical research articles and their more
popularized counterparts — “Medical electronic popularizations” (or
“Med-E-Pops”) — in order to highlight the hybridization process between
these genres. Exploring the genre of Med-E-Pops, she emphasizes that
Med-E-Pops reflect their corresponding research articles. She argues that
Med-E-Pops writers knowingly adapt research articles into more popularized and
comprehensible texts in order to raise the reliability of their texts, promote
their research, and expand readership in cyberspace.
Chapter thirteen, “Comments in academic blogs as a new form of scholarly
interaction,” aims at studying how the interpersonal strategies in blog
comments compare to those in other academic and computer-mediated
communication genres. In this study, Maria Jose Luzon analyzes a corpus of
eleven academic blogs from different disciplines, focusing on markers of
social and antisocial behavior. The findings highlight the hybrid nature of
comments in academic blogs and underline their role in constructing both
social and antisocial relations.
In chapter fourteen, “Cross-cultural differences in the construal of authorial
voice in the genre of diploma theses,” Olga Dontcheva-Navratilova examines
cross-cultural variation in the construal of authorial voice in relation to
the generic structure of theses written by Czech and German students of
English. The main objective of the study is an analysis of novice non-native
speakers’ use of pronominal self-reference items and impersonal
“it-“constructions to project an authorial voice into their master’s theses
written in English.
In chapter fifteen, “Cross-cultural differences in the use of discourse
Markers by Czech and German students of English in the genre of master’s
theses,” Renata Povolna investigates variation between the ways in which
novice non-native writers from two different discourse communities have
adopted the appropriate use of causal and contrastive discourse markers when
building coherent relations in academic texts. The study uses a small sample
of about 352000 words taken from a large corpus of Master’s theses written by
students of English in their final year of study. The findings indicate
cross-cultural variation in use of causal and contrastive discourse markers
(especially hypotactic and paratactic ones) as well as idiosyncrasies in use
of certain markers.
The chapters in Section Four, “Insights into Pedagogic Genres,” investigate
those genres that are used for educational purposes at a university level. In
chapter sixteen, “Variation in students’ accounts of graphic data: Context and
cotext factors in a polytechnic setting,” Carmen Sancho-Guinda examines
commentaries written by engineering students, focusing on a number of
constructive, contextual, and cotextual factors of those discourses, and the
role of such factors in discoursal variation. A combination of Goffman’s
(1971) interaction orders, the definitions of voice by Blommaert (2005) and
Ede (1989), and Hyland’s (2005) model of writer stance and engagement
constitute the theoretical framework for the interpretation of the results of
this study. The findings highlight variation in visual data reports in terms
of the expression of positioning and indicate that engagement features
outnumber stance features considerably.
In chapter seventeen,” K (Contract) Case Briefs in American law schools: A
genre-based analysis,” Michela Giordano conducts a qualitative and
quantitative genre analysis of a corpus of contract case briefs, a common
genre for students in American law schools, submitted by law students to an
online contract case brief bank. This study adopts Bhatia’s (1993) four-move
analytical model. An interesting feature of this study is an examination of
abbreviations and symbols in order to gain insights into how these represent
rhetorical strategies the student adopts as a way of analyzing a particular
case opinion in a formulaic way, recording and summarizing the outcomes for
further research and classroom discussion.
Chapter eighteen, “Digital video projects in English for academic purposes:
Students’ and lecturers’ perceptions and issues raised,” reports a study
conducted by Christoph A. Hafner, Lindsay Miller, and Connie Ng Kwai-Fun in
the context of an EAP course in an English-medium university in Hong Kong.
This qualitative study aims to configure a pedagogical approach to academic
literacy, which incorporates new advancements in information and communication
technologies. Students create a digital video scientific documentary, a hybrid
genre in digital media that brings together digital literacy practices with
traditional approaches to disciplinary English for academic purposes.
Chapter nineteen, “Interactive whiteboards as enhancers of genre hybridization
in academic settings,” reports a study on the incorporation of information and
communication technology tools into academic contexts. Patrizia Anesa and
Daniela Iovino investigate how integration of these tools, such as interactive
whiteboards, into academic courses facilitates the combination of features
that are typically associated with different genres such as lectures,
seminars, and presentations, and consequently, contributes to academic genre
hybridization, as a key feature of academic discourse.
In chapter twenty, “Representation of events and event participants in
academic course descriptions,” Sara Gesuato investigates characteristics of
academic course descriptions English through a textual approach. This study
focuses on lexico-grammatical representations of courses, teachers and
students, and events as the main components of academic course descriptions.
The study’s objectives are to determine the visibility of those components in
the texts and to determine the functional status of the texts (informational,
regulatory, or both) based on the assertions made about those components. The
corpus of this study consists of 100 course descriptions from ten disciplines.
EVALUATION
The attraction of “Insights into Academic Genres” begins with the book’s
high-caliber editors, Carol Berkenkotter, Vijay K. Brattier, and Maurizio
Gotti. The selection of cutting-edge studies, thematic organization of the
chapters, and the way they dovetail with each other in each section are all
indicative of the comprehensive knowledge of the editors (see also
Berkenkotter, Huckin, & Ackerman, 1988). Their informed decisions and quality
editing make this volume more than a mere conference proceedings volume.
The volume presupposes knowledge of the concept of genre, and is addressed to
novice and established members of the discourse community that intend to know
what the state of the art of genre analysis is, and where future research
needs to focus on. It introduces new perspectives on the concept of genre and
genre analysis, focusing on new, (semi)-occluded, and emerging genres in
academia. The focus on a wide range of hot topics such as (sub)disciplinary,
cross-cultural variation, genre sets, generic integrity, hybridization and
popularization in combination with assorted methodological approaches make
this volume a must-read for those interested in genre.
Carol Berkenkotter’s chapter is one of the cornerstones of this volume. This
chapter puts forward interesting questions about conceptualization of genre
and generic variation in today’s digital context and draws attention to
importance and status of digital genres and internet-based discursive
practices. Stepping beyond traditional concepts of genre and genre analysis,
it also highlights the significance of further research into evolution of
“protean genres” such as wikis and blogs as a budding research area in today’s
research arena. Highlighting the theorist’s stance in conceptualization of
generic variation, this innovative chapter focuses on the blog as a rising
academic genre and operationalizes the concept of genre as a “recognition
category”.
Vijay Bhatia’s chapter presents a new and different perspective on research
article as one of the most-researched academic genres. In contrast to the bulk
of research on research articles, which is dedicated to the lexical and
rhetorical analysis of different sections of this genre and its evolution
overtime, this chapter focuses on the significance of “ management of
interdiscursive space” in genre analysis in general and between this genre and
doctoral theses in particular and challenges and complexities of novice
scholars for writing for scholarly publication. It highlights social-cultural
aspects and functions of genre rather than merely textual ones, draws
attention to underlying differences existent even in similar genres, and as
Bhatia argues, underlines the significance of a critical approach to genre
analysis. Considering the undeniable significance of scholarly publications in
global scholarship and “publish or perish” as one of the biggest challenges
for both established and novice academics, this chapter provides invaluable
insights for those interested in the research and pedagogy of writing for
scholarly publication.
Davide S. Giannoni’s chapter is noteworthy in two aspects. First, focusing on
an under-researched area in genre studies, this chapter deals with axiology of
academic discourse and linguistic manifestations and features of values
embedded in academic discourse. Second, from a methodological perspective,
this research uses a novel mixed-methods design combining quantitative
automatic and manual tools and techniques for identification of value-making
features in a written corpus of 100 research articles.
Francisco Javier Fernandez Polo’s chapter is the only chapter in this volume
that focuses on an oral genre namely, conference presentations. The
significance of oral genres in general and and conference presentations in
particular and their role in academic lives of scholars on the one hand and
the fact that genre studies have mainly focused written genres on the other
hand make this chapter a must-read.
Starfield, Paltridge, and Ravioli’s chapter is also one of the stronger
contributions in this volume. The research reported in their chapter is
noteworthy in terms of its methodological approach. In spite of the
traditional approach to genre analysis in which written discourse was the sole
source of data, this study adopts an investigative approach combining text
analysis and ethnographic methods to investigate a student-generated genre,
i.e., practice-based theses, in relatively new fields of visual and performing
arts. Attention to data triangulation through drawing on mixed data collection
methods such as survey, interview, and document analysis and longitudinal
nature of this study make the findings and implications of this research
particularly relevant.
Anna Stermieri’s pioneering research into the academic theater review is one
of the most interesting chapters of the third section of this volume. The
findings of this study are noteworthy as they highlight two interesting
features in this genre. At the macro-level, the results indicate a four-move
pattern in the rhetorical organization of this genre. At the micro-level, the
results reveal the double deixis of time and space as an interesting feature
in one of the constituent moves (the “Narrative move”).
Maria Jose Luzon’s research into academic blogs, as a genre of growing
popularity with academics, is also one of the must –reads in this volume.
Unlike most traditional genre studies, it focuses on an Internet-mediated
genre and on the hybrid nature of communication in a web-based social space.
Carmen Sancho-Guinda’s study is noteworthy in two respects. First, the study
examines graphic commentaries of visuals as a hybrid, unresearched genre in
applied linguistics. Second, the study adopts a mixed-methods approach
(combining discourse-based and corpus-informed methodology). The combination
of quantitative and qualitative methods and tools into innovative methods and
designs is an interesting feature of Giannoni’s, Mazzi’s, and Sancho-Guinda’s
studies as well.
Overall, this book is a very welcome addition to research on academic genres.
Any comments on what more could have been included or addressed seems
difficult, as the nature and focus of the papers presented at the conference,
and the editors’ subjective criteria for selection are not known. However,
based on the current content, the book could have done more justice to oral
academic genres and corpora as well as cross-cultural generic variation.
Moreover, an index at the end of the book would have added to the merits of
this volume.
Globalization and internationalization of academia require more in-depth
inquiry into student-produced genres, and cross-cultural, and contextual
factors that influence generic integrity and variation. Research also needs to
focus on (semi)occluded, and emerging disciplinary genres that students,
especially international ones, need to acquire for socialization purposes in
academia.
REFERENCES
Berkenkotter, C., Huckin, T. N., & Ackerman, J. (1988). Conventions,
conversations, and the writer: Case study of a student in a rhetoric Ph.D.
program. Research in the Teaching of English, 22(1), 9-44.
Bhatia, V. K. (1993). Analyzing Genre: Language Use in Professional Settings.
London: Longman.
Bhatia, V. K. (2000). Generic View of Academic Discourse. In: J. Flowerdew
(Ed), Academic Discourse (pp. 21-39). London: Pearson.
Bhatia, V. K. (2002). Applied Genre Analysis: A Multi-perspective Model.
Iberia, 4, 3-19.
Bhatia, V. K. (2004). Worlds of Written Discourse: A Genre-based Approach.
London: Continuum.
Bhatia, V. K. (2007). Interdiscursivity in Critical Genre Analysis. Paper
given at the Fourth International Symposium on Genre Studies, Unusual, Brazil.
Blommaert, J. (2005). Discourse. A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Ede, L. S. (1989). Work in Progress: A Guide to Writing and Revising. New
York: St. Martin’s Press.
Goffman, E. (1971). Relations in Public. New York: Harper & Row.
Hyland, K. (2005). Stance and Engagement: A Model of Interaction in Academic
Discourse. Discourse Studies, 7(2), 173-192.
Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research
Settings. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press.
Swales, J. M. (1998a). Textography: Toward a Contextualization of Written
Academic Discourse. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 31(1),
109-121.
Swales, J. M. (1998b). Other Floors, Other Voices: A Textography of a Small
University Building. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Swales, J. M. (2004). Research Genres: Explorations and Applications. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Van Eemeren, F. H., & Grootendorst, R. (1992). Argumentation, Communication
and Fallacies. A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective. Hillsdale, N.J.; Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Pejman Habibie is the lead teacher assistant in the Faculty of Education at
The University of Western Ontario, Canada. His research interests are EAP,
academic writing and publishing, genre analysis, and doctoral education.
Jul 19
ThE CLOwNannouncements
Title: The Travelling Concepts of Narrative
Series Title: Studies in Narrative 18
Publication Year: 2013
Publisher: John Benjamins
http://www.benjamins.com/
Book URL: http://benjamins.com/catalog/sin.18
Editor: Mari Hatavara
Editor: Lars-Christer Hydén
Editor: Matti Hyvärinen
Electronic: ISBN: 9789027271969 Pages: 311 Price: U.S. $ 143.00
Electronic: ISBN: 9789027271969 Pages: 311 Price: U.K. £ 80.00
Electronic: ISBN: 9789027271969 Pages: 311 Price: Europe EURO 95.00
Abstract:
Narrative is a pioneer concept in our trans-disciplinary age. For decades, it
has been one of the most successful catchwords in literature, history,
cultural studies, philosophy, and health studies. While the expansion of
narrative studies has led to significant advances across a number of fields,
the travels for the concept itself have been a somewhat more complex. Has the
concept of narrative passed intact from literature to sociology, from
structuralism to therapeutic practice or to the study of everyday
storytelling? In this volume, philosophers, psychologists, literary theorists,
sociolinguists, and sociologists use methodologically challenging test cases
to scrutinise the types, transformations, and trajectories of the concept and
theory of narrative. The book powerfully argues that narrative concepts are
profoundly relevant in the understanding of life, experience, and literary
texts. Nonetheless, it emphasises the vast contextual differences and
contradictions in the use of the concept.
Jul 19
ThE CLOwNannouncements
Title: Reading the Absurd
Publication Year: 2013
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
http://www.euppublishing.com
Book URL: http://www.euppublishing.com/book/9780748670017
Author: Joanna Gavins
Hardback: ISBN: 9780748669264 Pages: 224 Price: U.K. £ 75.00
Paperback: ISBN: 9780748670017 Pages: 224 Price: U.K. £ 24.99
Abstract:
Challenges traditional scholarship on absurdist literature, privileging the
reader and the genre’s stylistic achievements.
What is the literary absurd? What are its key textual features? How can it be
analysed? How do different readers respond to absurdist literature? Taking the
theories and methodologies of stylistics as its underlying analytical
framework, Reading the Absurd tackles each of these questions. Selected key
works in English literature are examined in depth to reveal significant
aspects of absurd style. Its analytical approach combines stylistic inquiry
with a cognitive perspective on language, literature and reading which sheds
new light on the human experience of literary reading. By exploring the
literary absurd as a linguistic and experiential phenomena, while at the same
time reflecting upon its essential historical and cultural situation, Joanna
Gavins brings a new perspective to the absurd aesthetic.
Jul 19
ThE CLOwNannouncements
Title: Language, Music, and the Brain
Subtitle: A Mysterious Relationship
Series Title: Strungmann Forum Reports
Publication Year: 2013
Publisher: MIT Press
Home Page
Book URL: http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/language-music-and-brain
Editor: MIchael A Arbib
Hardback: ISBN: 9780262018104 Pages: 584 Price: U.S. $ 50.00
Abstract:
This book explores the relationships between language, music, and the brain by pursuing four key themes and the crosstalk among them: song and dance as a bridge between music and language; multiple levels of structure from brain to behaviour to culture; the semantics of internal and external worlds and the role of emotion; and the evolution and development of language. The book offers specially commissioned expositions of current research accessible both to experts across disciplines and to non-experts. These chapters provide the background for reports by groups of specialists that chart current controversies and future directions of research on each theme.
The book looks beyond mere auditory experience, probing the embodiment that links speech to gesture and music to dance. The study of the brains of monkeys and songbirds illuminates hypotheses on the evolution of brain mechanisms that support music and language, while the study of infants calibrates the developmental timetable of their capacities. The result is a unique book that will interest any reader seeking to learn more about language or music and will appeal especially to readers intrigued by the relationships of language and music with each other and with the brain.
Jul 11
ChRIS CLÉiRIGhannouncements
Title: Voice in Political Discourse
Subtitle: Castro, Chavez, Bush and their Strategic Use of Language
Publication Year: 2013
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing (formerly The Continuum International Publishing Group)
http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/
Book URL: http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/voice-in-political-discourse-9780567003584/
Author: Antonio Reyes
Paperback: ISBN: 9780567003584 Pages: 208 Price: U.K. £ 24.99
Abstract:
Politicians enact three main roles in political discourse – narrator,
interlocutor and character – to achieve specific goals. This book explains
these roles and how they constitute discursive strategies, correlating with
political aims. In short: politicians evoke voices in discourse to
strategically position themselves in relation to social actors and events. The
book describes these strategies and analyzes the manner in which they are
employed by three very different politicians – Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and
George W. Bush. The roles are studied cross-culturally and from different
ideological backgrounds.
This book explains how political ideologies are constructed, defined and
redefined by linguistic means, showing specific ways in which politicians
manipulate language to achieve the goals on their political agenda. It applies
new methodological approaches to the analysis of political discourse and also
contributes to the sparse literature on political discourse analysis of
Spanish-speaking politicians.
Jul 11
ChRIS CLÉiRIGhannouncements
Title: The Sociolinguistics of Writing
Series Title: Edinburgh Sociolinguistics
Publication Year: 2013
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
http://www.euppublishing.com
Book URL: http://www.euppublishing.com/book/9780748637508
Author: Theresa Lillis
Hardback: ISBN: 9780748637485 Pages: 192 Price: U.K. £ 70.00
Paperback: ISBN: 9780748637508 Pages: 192 Price: U.K. £ 22.99
Abstract:
Brings the study of writing to the heart of sociolinguistic inquiry
This book puts writing at the centre of sociolinguistic inquiry drawing on a
range of academic fields including New Literacy Studies, semiotics, genre
studies, stylistics and new rhetoric. The key question the book explores is-
what do we mean by ‘writing’ in the 21 century? Using examples from across a
range of contexts the book argues that writing, involving both old and new
technologies, is a pervasive and complex communicative feature of contemporary
life.
The book is organised around the following areas:
– The multimodal nature of writing
– The verbal dimension to writing
– Writing as everyday practice
– Writing as a differentiated semiotic and social resource
– Writing as the inscription of identity
A range of analytic tools for analysing writing as text and practice are
illustrated including genre, register, discourse and metaphor, as well as
notions which emphasise the mobile potential of writing such as genre chains,
networks, literacy brokers and text trajectories. This book seeks to redress
the neglect of writing in the field of sociolinguistics by introducing readers
to the nature and consequences of what it means to do writing in a globalised
world.
Jul 08
ChRIS CLÉiRIGhbook review
EDITOR: Claudia Holler
EDITOR: Martin Klepper
TITLE: Rethinking Narrative Identity
SUBTITLE: Persona and Perspective
SERIES TITLE: Studies in Narrative 17
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2013
REVIEWER: Damian J. Rivers, Osaka University
SUMMARY
As Volume 17 of the Studies in Narrative (SiN) series (edited by Michael
Bamberg), this book offers a multi-dimensional approach to the exploration and
understanding of narrative and the plethora of channels through which
conceptualizations of narrative and identity are intertwined. The ten chapters
within the volume originate from a diverse array of academic fields such as
literary theory, philosophy, gender studies, and history, thus tending to a
broad spectrum of potential reader interest. Within their own individual area
of specialization, the contributing authors each highlight the importance of
perspective and persona in the perception of and the possibilities existent in
the creation and interpretation of narrative identities.
The Introduction [Rethinking narrative identity: Persona and perspective], by
Martin Klepper, serves to announce the direction of the volume and the
multi-disciplinary parameters of the ten proceeding individual chapters by
providing “initial impulses” intended to “open up a dialogue with the
explorations that follow” (p. 4). The author draws upon an impressive body of
literature concerning, amongst other issues, the narrative understanding of
personal identities, with particular attention given to the work of the
philosopher, Paul Ricoeur (a significant presence throughout the volume).
Klepper describes the volume as a collection of ”essays by scholars from
various disciplines exploring to which extent and with which modifications the
notion of narrative identity is productive in their field of expertise” (p.
4). These ten chapters are positioned as being situated within the rapidly
transforming lifeworlds of the twenty-first century and this analogy
accurately captures the sense of dynamism present throughout the volume.
Important in focusing the expectations of the reader is the author’s
acknowledgement that ”the resulting mosaic is not a neat, homogenous one”
(p. 4). On the whole, the Introduction offers an exciting variety of
insightful perspectives on narrative identity and primes the reader for what
follows.
Chapter 1 [Identity and empathy: On the correlation of narrativity and
morality], by Norbert Meuter (translated by B. Greenhill, C Himmelreich, C.
Holler and M. Klepper), converges specifically upon the question of ethics in
narrative from a philosophical perspective. The author’s main thesis is that
”[m]oral experience and acting are fundamentally based on processes of
identity and empathy formation, and narratives enable, create, stabilize and
energize both identity and empathy” (p. 33). The chapter is divided into
three thematic sections, each featuring numerous sub-sections dealing with
narrativity, morality, and the correlation between these two terms. In making
reference to the “double structure that represents the central touchstone of
narrative ethics”, the author surmises that ”[e]mpathy and identity are two
sides of one (moral) cause. Self and Other are two values that cannot be
pitted against one another” (p. 46).
Chapter 2 [Axes of identity: Persona, perspective, and the meaning of (Keith
Richards’s) life], by Mark Freeman, takes the self-identity work of William
James as a foundation and looks at two interrelated axes of identity,
identified in the author’s previous work as time and relatedness to the Other.
Through the use of Keith Richards’s memoir ‘Life’, the author illustrates and
explores the processes involved in negotiating one’s own and others’
perspectives on the self. Underscored by questions of ”[w]hy should we care
so much about Keith Richards? Why should we care so much that we are willing
to read through nearly 600 pages of his life?” (p. 55), the author presents a
number of interesting extracts from the memoir and analyzes them in relation
to various threads of narrative identity such as persona, the duality of human
nature, and authenticity.
Chapter 3 [The quest for a third space: Heterotopic self-positioning and
narrative identity], by Wolfgang Kraus, concerns issues of belonging and the
question of ”Who am I part of?” found within narrative approaches to
identity construction as well as the more commonly asked question of ”Who am
I in time” (p. 69). Related to issues of (intentional) self-positioning and
other-positioning, the author ponders on how it is possible for individuals to
”maintain the dynamics of self-positioning in self-stories, which are largely
shaped by the experience of social exclusion” (p. 69). Interview excerpts are
shared and serve as a platform for an in-depth discussion in which the author
asks ”[h]ow do people deal with the experience of stereotyping, which keeps
them fixed in a position of being ‘othered’…?” (p. 75). The idea of a third
space is then analyzed, along with the issue of heterotopias and
self-positioning, heterotopias as choice and construction, the narration of
heterotopic experiences, and heterotopic positioning as ‘work on the
impossible’. The author concludes by noting that a primary challenge for
future research is to ”look for the hardly sayable, the small blades of grass
between the rigidity of dominant, superficially well-defined and seemingly
unchangeable binary tales” (p. 82).
Chapter 4 [Constructing perspectives as positioning resources in stories of
the self], by Gabriele Lucius-Hoene, examines the role of perspectivation in
personal storytelling and the negotiation of moral claims through which the
”almighty author” is able ”to gain authentication and persuasive power
while refraining from explicit evaluations” (p. 85). With a ”twist [which]
namely complicates the stories they tell about their lives and their problems
in interview setting” (p. 87), the author cites two stories taken from
narrative interviews with sufferers of severe chronic illness. The author
shares the two conversation transcriptions and gives a thorough analysis of
each, highlighting the rhetorical devices used, in addition to providing a
broad sociolinguistic interpretation. The author concludes that both narrators
”show a strong tendency for interactive orientation; also, they exploit their
stories for the purpose of entertaining the listener by using a variety of
stylistic means” (p. 99).
Chapter 5 [Referential frameworks and focalization in a craft artist’s life
story: A socionarratological perspective on narrative identity], by Jarmila
Mildorf, explores “the roles perspective can play in conversational
storytelling…and to what extent literary narratology can offer useful terms to
describe perspective-taking in such contexts” (p. 103). Utilizing a detailed
life interview with a craft artist (Dominic Di Mare), the author emphasizes
instances of focalization and how the artist positions himself during the
interview and in his narrative, as well as how the artist offers invitation to
the interviewer (Signe Mayfield) to partially adopt his position. The
mid-sections of the chapter discuss previous narrative studies, present an
outline of what David Herman terms as socionarratology, and offer an
examination of the term focalization. The author then shares an analysis of
the interview before concluding that much can be gained from “combining
linguistic narrative analysis with narratological concepts” (p. 113).
Chapter 6 [Strange perspectives = strange (narrative?) identities?], by
Rüdiger Heinze, asks ”[i]f our understanding of fictional narratives is based
on real-world experiential cognitive parameters, how do we deal with texts
that cannot be fully grasped in accordance with these parameters, and what
effects do these ‘unnatural’ texts have on everyday storytelling” (p. 117).
The author uses Galen Strawson’s argument against narrative identity as a
starting point and gives specific attention to ”’strange’ and ‘unnatural’
narrative perspectives” (p. 119) that extend beyond the common genre of
autobiography. The author provides ample background literature and
rationalizes the main argument through reference to five clearly stated
assumptions. The chapter then draws upon Rick Moody’s novel, ‘The Ice Storm’,
and his (very) short story, ‘The Grid’, to demonstrate what happens ”to
narrative identity and perspective if we take unnatural narratives with
impossible perspectives seriously” (p. 123). The author closes the chapter by
highlighting how such examples offer a ”conception of narrative identity and
perspective that [does] justice to our often very weird lives” (p. 126).
Chapter 7 [”Indefinite, sketchy, but not entirely obliterated”: Narrative
identity in Jeffrey Eugenides’s ‘Middlesex’], by Nicole Frey Büchel, analyzes
the narrated identity experiences and selfhood construction of the intersexual
narrator and protagonist (Calliope Stephanides) within ‘Middlesex’. From a
mainly post-structuralist perspective and based on the belief that narratives
are forced to communicate with pre-existing texts, the author suggests that
consequently ”narratives are revealed to be incapable of providing a definite
selfhood” and that ‘Middlesex’ ”reformulates the concept of narrative
identity in terms of constant, ultimately open-ended performance” (p. 130).
Making extensive use of supporting footnotes, the chapter provides a detailed
literary analysis of the narrated experiences of the protagonist and the
subsequent implications for selfhood and identity. The author concludes by
asserting how “the very ruptures in Cal’s narrative identity are the features
that ultimately come to define his individual and unique self” (p. 145).
Chapter 8 [Creative confession: Self-writing, forgiveness and ethics in Ian
McEwan’s ‘Atonement’], by Kim L. Worthington, explores issues surrounding
truth and self-forgiveness in the act of the self-authorizing confession, and
the ethical considerations raised as a consequence. With emphasis on Ian
McEwan’s ‘Atonement’, and the protagonist Briony Tallis, the author argues
that the novel ”points up the impossibility of attaining either truth or
self-forgiveness via acts of (confessional) self-writing” (p. 148). The first
part of the chapter provides a thematic discussion of the parameters of the
act of confession and draws upon the work of scholars such as Peter Brooks,
Michel Foucault and J.M. Coetzee. The proceeding sections of the chapter
provide detailed critical analyses of the novel from a number of comparative
perspectives, whilst retaining a clear focus on the act of confession and the
implications created for narrative identity.
Chapter 9 [The queer self and the snares of heteronormativity: Quentin Crisp’s
life story – A successful failure], by Eveline Kilian, investigates the
autobiographical life writings of Quentin Crisp in ‘The Naked Civil Servant’.
With implications for autobiographical structure and queer conceptualizations
of time, Quentin Crisp is cast as one of ”heteronormativity’s marginalized
others” (p. 171) who are required to manage a quite paradoxical existence.
The significance of ‘The Naked Civil Servant’ and the fascinating
autobiographical identities portrayed by Quentin Crisp are situated within the
chapter as being demonstrative of ”the self-fashioning of a queer subject who
defies hegemonic gender norms and counters society’s undisguised hostility and
ostracism by squarely inhabiting the position of the abject attributed to
him” (p. 172). Throughout the chapter, a detailed analysis is offered
concerning the manner in which Quentin Crisp, through the unconditional
acceptance of a lifestyle deemed to be failure by society, is able to
ultimately achieve success and ”beat the system at its own game” (p. 183)
without conforming to the norms of heteronormativity.
Chapter 10 [Confessional poetry: A poetic perspective on narrative identity],
by Eva Brunner, shares a broad literary exploration of identity construction
within lyrical texts (three Anne Sexton poems) and deals with issues such as
different self-concepts, the possibility of multiple selves, permanent
self-actualization through narrative, conventional narratological frames, and
the relationship between identity and emotion. The author offers a detailed
introduction of narrative identity and narratological frames, citing scholars
from philosophy, literature, and psychology in order to highlight different
conceptualizations of narrative. The focus of the chapter then turns toward
confessional poetry that is ”situated in a transitional space between
modernism and postmodernism” (p. 191) and an analysis of three of Anne
Sexton’s poems. In concluding, the author draws attention to how the
”self-presentations in these poems are concerned with emotional states rather
than with sequences of events, although these aspects often overlap” (p.
200). This position underpins the author’s call for greater attention to be
given to ”the emotional aspects of identity” (p. 201).
EVALUATION
In casting the narration of the self as a process never fully achieving a
“final configuration”, co-editor of the volume Martin Klepper asserts how “the
need for coherence and unity must be seen in a paradoxical relation to the
tendency towards contingency and diffusion”, and this is suggested as the
“homology that ultimately brings narrative and identity together” (p. 28).
This observation can be positioned as a metaphor for the volume as a whole.
Indeed, one of the most attractive features of the volume is the richness and
diversity of the perspectives expressed throughout each chapter, in addition
to the variety of approaches taken by each of the respective authors. In
producing a volume that demonstrates collective freedom from the potential
confines of one particular discipline, the notions of narrative and identity
are comprehensively brought together through a refreshing collage of
expression and vitality. Each chapter presents the reader with a substantive
exploration of narrative identity without undue repetition. The specific
characteristics of each chapter and the different academic fields from which
the authors originate ensure that this volume offers the reader an invitation
and access to information that might well inspire new directions of
exploration.
In situating this rather sophisticated volume alongside other books, it is
liberating to see that the most general topic of investigation (narrative
identity) is given clear precedence over the academic field through which it
is observed and, much in the same manner as the paradox noted in the paragraph
above, this structure has the somewhat unexpected effect of producing a
coherent and cohesive collection of chapters. The editors have clearly
achieved the stated goal of “present[ing] essays by scholars from various
disciplines exploring to which extent and with which modification the notion
of narrative identity is productive in their field of expertise” (p. 4). The
approach taken by the editors should be commended, as all too often the
individual chapters within such edited volumes are unified as much by the
field from which they originate as they are by the general theme of the
volume. In this respect, and through the pleasurable experience of reading the
book, it would seem productive to have more volumes published that embrace a
multi-disciplinary approach toward a particular notion as a means of providing
the reader with a more comprehensive account. The multi-disciplinary nature of
this volume also serves to broaden the potential target audience. In offering
numerous pathways to the study and understanding of narrative identity, one
could expect that readers of this book will be primarily brought together via
a shared interest in narrative identity, as opposed to a primary interest in
linguistics, psychology or any of the other academic fields presented within
this volume. For example, having read numerous other volumes on narrative
identity from a sociological background (e.g. Holstein and Gubrium, 2000),
this volume has stimulated a desire to further explore the psychological work
of Wolfgang Kraus (author of Chapter Three) and the identity literature of
Quentin Crisp (featured in Chapter Nine).
Whilst certainly appealing to a wide audience, one might suggest that this
volume is not entirely suitable for students (particularly undergraduates) or
casual readers in narrative identity, unless the reader is willing to invest a
significant amount of time into the volume. Many of the chapters are complex
and make extended reference to rather heavy philosophical works. As a result,
the material can at times seem quite demanding. Despite this rather minor
observation, as a teacher-researcher with an interest in narrative identity,
this volume will certainly serve as a frequent source of direct and indirect
reference for a number of related projects. The diversity shown within the
study and the understanding of narrative identity throughout the volume are
undeniably impressive. Other readers across multiple fields of study will also
find the volume to be a rewarding experience; one that, if given sufficient
investment, will lead to a rethinking of narrative identity.
REFERENCES
Holstein, J.A. and Gubrium, J.F. (2000). The self we live by: Narrative
identity in a postmodern world. New York: Oxford University Press.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Damian J. Rivers is an Associate Professor at Osaka University in the English
Department, Graduate School of Language and Culture and holds a Ph.D in
Applied Linguistics from the University of Leicester, England. His main
research interests concern the management of multiple identities in relation
to otherness, the impact of national identities upon a variety of foreign
language education processes, critical issues in intercultural communication,
and social processes underpinning intergroup stereotypes. He is co-editor of
‘Native-Speakerism in Japan: Intergroup Dynamics in Foreign Language
Education’ (2013, Multilingual Matters) and ‘Social Identities and Multiple
Selves in Foreign Language Education’ (2013, Bloomsbury) (www.djrivers.com).
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