Discourse Reflexivity in Linear Unit Grammar


Book Description

Discourse Reflexivity in Linear Unit Grammar: The case of IMDb message boards represents a significant landmark. Not only is it the first in-depth corpus-based study to be based on Linear Unit Grammar, it is also the first study to present a unified model of both Linear Unit Grammar and Linear Unit Discourse Analysis. To illustrate this model, the book focuses on the role of discourse reflexivity in the linear structure of online message board discourse from the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) webpage. It is shown that discourse reflexivity plays a central role in the linear structure and antagonism characteristic of this type of discourse. This book will particularly appeal to those who have an interest in carrying forward the innovations in the description of grammar, lexis and discourse proposed by John Sinclair in his lifetime as well as to those with a specific interest in discourse reflexivity and computer-mediated communication.




Linear Unit Grammar


Book Description

People have a natural propensity to understand language text as a succession of smallish chunks, whether they are reading, writing, speaking or listening. Linguists have found that this propensity can shed light on the nature and structure of language, and there are many studies which attempt to harness the potential of natural chunking.This book explores the role of chunking in the description of discourse, especially spoken discourse. It appears that chunking offers a sound but flexible platform on which can be built a descriptive model which is more open and comprehensive than more familiar approaches to structural description. The model remains linear, in that it avoids hierarchies, and it concentrates on the combinatorial patterns of text. The linear approach turns out to have many advantages, bringing together under one descriptive method a wide variety of different styles of speech and writing. It is complementary to established grammars, but it raises pertinent questions about many of their assumptions.




Handbook of Pragmatics


Book Description

The Manual section of the Handbook of Pragmatics, produced under the auspices of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA), is a collection of articles describing traditions, methods, and notational systems relevant to the field of linguistic pragmatics; the main body of the Handbook contains all topical articles. The first edition of the Manual was published in 1995. This second edition includes a large number of new traditions and methods articles from the 24 annual installments of the Handbook that have been published so far. It also includes revised versions of some of the entries in the first edition. In addition, a cumulative index provides cross-references to related topical entries in the annual installments of the Handbook and the Handbook of Pragmatics Online (at https://benjamins.com/online/hop/), which continues to be updated and expanded. This second edition of the Manual is intended to facilitate access to the most comprehensive resource available today for any scholar interested in pragmatics as defined by the International Pragmatics Association: “the science of language use, in its widest interdisciplinary sense as a functional (i.e. cognitive, social, and cultural) perspective on language and communication.”




Handbook of Pragmatics


Book Description

This encyclopaedia of one of the major fields of language studies is a continuously updated source of state-of-the-art information for anyone interested in language use. The IPrA Handbook of Pragmatics provides easy access — for scholars with widely divergent backgrounds but with convergent interests in the use and functioning of language — to the different topics, traditions and methods which together make up the field of pragmatics, broadly conceived as the cognitive, social and cultural study of language and communication, i.e. the science of language use. The Handbook of Pragmatics is a unique reference work for researchers, which has been expanded and updated continuously with annual installments since 1995. Also available as Online Resource: https://www.benjamins.com/online/hop/




Reflexively Speaking


Book Description

This series welcomes book proposals detailing innovative and cutting edge research and theorisation in the field of English as a lingua franca (ELF). The purpose of the series is to offer a wide forum for work on ELF, including aspects such as descriptions and analyses of ELF; ELF use in a range of domains including education (primary, secondary and tertiary), business, tourism; conceptual works challenging current assumptions about English use and usage; works exploring the implications of ELF for English language policy, pedagogy, and practice; and ELF in relation to global multilingualism.




Metadiscourse in Digital Communication


Book Description

In this book, a solid and emerging group of international researchers contributes to the theory of metadiscourse and to our understanding of the role metadiscourse and related ‘meta’ phenomena may play in digital forms of communication. Providing examples of new research methods and approaches, the authors investigate progressively hybridized academic and non-academic genres that have migrated from analogue to digital format. The book offers valuable insights on how digital communication has changed today’s communication environments and provides examples of research methods needed to capture that change. This volume will be appreciated by scholars and graduate students interested in linguistics, corpus linguistics and metadiscourse.




Exploring ELF


Book Description

This book explores the emerging area of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) in academic settings. The emergence and recognition of English used as a Lingua Franca (ELF) offers new opportunities for investigating language change and language contact. This volume explores the use of English in an academic context and between speakers from a range of language backgrounds, and is the only book to date to present spoken academic English from a non-native speaker perspective. Data examined from the one-million-word English as a Lingua Franca in Academic Settings (ELFA) corpus provides an in-depth account of how speakers use and shape the language through dialogue in intellectually and verbally demanding situations. Available separately as a hardback.




English for Academic Purposes


Book Description

The analysis of academic genres and the use of corpus resources, methods and analytical tools are now central to a great deal of research into English for Academic Purposes (EAP). Both genre analysis and corpus investigations have revealed the patterning of academic texts, at the levels of lexicogrammar and discourse, and have led to richer understandings of the variations in such patterning between genres and between disciplines. The thirteen contributions included in this volume address issues in academic discourse studies from a range of perspectives: namely, corpus-based research into EAP at the lexicogrammatical and genre levels (Section 1); intercultural EAP research (Section 2); English as a Lingua Franca in academic communication (Section 3); and the relationships between corpus, genre and pedagogy in EAP, with an emphasis on implications and applications (Section 4). The collection is aimed primarily at teachers, students and researchers of EAP and applied corpus linguistics, but will also interest applied linguists in general. The emphasis of the contributions varies from studies with predominantly linguistic orientations to those focussing on practical applications.




Functional Perspectives on Grammar and Discourse


Book Description

This book, a tribute to Angela Downing, consists of twenty papers taking a broadly functional perspective on language, with topics ranging from the general (grammar as an evolutionary product, text comprehension, integrative linguistics) to particular aspects of the grammars of languages (Bulgarian, English, Icelandic, Spanish, Swedish). The more specific papers are sequenced according to Halliday s division into ideational, textual and interpersonal aspects of the grammar, and cover a wide range of areas, including aspect, argument structure, noun phrase/nominal group structure and nominalisations, pronominal clitics, theme in relation to writing skills, discourse structures and markers, the role of attention in conversation, the functions of topic, phatic communion, subjectification, formulaic language and modality. A recurrent theme in the volume is the use of corpus materials in order to base functional descriptions on authentic productions. Overall, the volume constitutes a panoramic but nevertheless detailed view of some important current trends in functional linguistics.




The Grammar of Discourse


Book Description