In 1903, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote about the Talented Tenth in an influential essay of the same name. The concept exalted college-educated Blacks who Du Bois believed could provide the race with the guidance it needed to surmount slavery, segregation, and oppression in America. Although Du Bois eventually reassessed this idea, the rhetoric of the Talented Tenth resonated, still holding sway over a hundred years later. In Rethinking Racial Uplift: Rhetorics of Black Unity and Disunity in the Obama Era, author Nigel I. Malcolm asserts that in the post-civil rights era, racial uplift has been redefined not as Black public intellectuals lifting the masses but as individuals securing advantage for themselves and their children. Malcolm examines six best-selling books published during Obama's presidency-including Randall Kennedy's Sellout, Bill Cosby's and Alvin Poussaint's Come on People, and Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me-and critically analyzes their rhetorics on Black unity, disunity, and the so-called "postracial" era. Based on these writings and the work of political and social scientists, Malcolm shows that a large, often-ignored, percentage of Blacks no longer see their fate as connected with that of other African Americans. While many Black intellectuals and activists seek to provide a justification for Black solidarity, not all agree. In Rethinking Racial Uplift, Malcolm takes contemporary Black public intellectual discourse seriously and shows that disunity among Blacks, a previously ignored topic, is worth exploring.

Employing a discourse analytical approach this book focuses on the under-researched strategy of humour to illustrate how discursive performances of leadership are influenced by gender and workplace culture. Far from being a superfluous strategy that distracts from business, humour performs a myriad of important functions in the workplace context.

People do bad things. They misspeak, mislead, and misbehave. They lie, cheat, steal, and kill. Often, afterward, they apologize. But what makes a successful apology? Why does Joe Biden's 2007 apology for referring to Barack Obama as "articulate and bright" succeed, whereas Mel Gibson's 2006 apology for his anti-Semitic tirade fails? Naturally, the effectiveness of an apology depends on the language used, as well as the conditions under which we offer our regrets. In Sorry About That, linguist Edwin Battistella analyzes the public apologies of presidents, politicians, entertainers, and businessmen, situating the apology within American popular culture. Battistella offers the fascinating stories behind these apologies alongside his own analysis of the language used in each. He uses these examples to demonstrate the ways in which language creates sincere or insincere apologies, why we choose to apologize or don't, and how our efforts to say we are sorry succeed or fail. Each chapter expands on a central concept or distinction that explains part of the apology process. Battistella covers over fifty memorable apologies from McDonald's, Martha Stewart, Oprah Winfrey, Jane Fonda, Bill Clinton, and many more. Moving back and forth between examples and concepts, Battistella connects actual apologies with the broader social, ethical, and linguistic principles behind them. Readers will come away from the book better consumers of apologies - and better apologizers as well.

Argument and imagination are often interdependent. The Aesthetics of Argument is concerned with how this relationship may bear on argument's concern with truth, not just persuasion, and with the enhancement of understanding such interdependence may bring. The rationality of argument, conceived as the advancement of reasons for or against a claim, is not simply a matter of deductive validity. Whether arguments are relevant, have force, or look foolish-or whether an example is telling or merely illustrative-cannot always be assessed in these terms. Martin Warner presents a series of case studies which explore how analogy, metaphor, narrative, image, and symbol can be used in different ways to frame one domain in terms of another, severally or in various combinations, and how criteria drawn from the study of imaginative literature may have a bearing on their truth-aptness. Such framing can be particularly effective in argumentative roles which invite self-interrogation, as Plato saw long ago. Narrative in such cases may be fictional, whether parabolic or dramatic, autobiographical or biographical, and in certain cases may seek to show how standard conceptualizations are inadequate. Beyond this, whether in poetry or prose and not only with respect to narrative, the "logic" of imagery enables us to make principled sense of our capacity to grasp imagistically elements of our experience through words whose use at the imaginative level has transformed their standard conceptual relationships, and hence judge the credibility of associated arguments. Assessment of the argumentative imagination requires criteria drawn not only from dialectic and rhetoric, but also from poetics.

Language, Sexuality, and Power: Studies in Intersectional Sociolinguistics examines the diversity of sexuality as a social and linguistic phenomenon. Bringing together work on Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America and the Middle East, the volume explores how different ideologies of what it means to belong to a nation or culture influence how sexualities are both understood and linguistically expressed in a range of global locales. Contributions to the volume use experiments, discourse analysis and different types of statistical tests to identify the particular aspects of language - accent, grammar, vocabulary, discourse - that are ideologically associated with sexuality in specific contexts. Combining insights from linguistics, anthropology, sociology and cultural studies, the essays describe how individuals draw on these culturally-specific associations both when evaluating the speech of others and in their everyday presentations of self. Together, the eleven chapters in the collection provide a wide-ranging and multi-method perspective on how language mediates individual desires and larger social structures. They also serve to demonstrate the diverse interconnections between sexuality and other dimensions of lived experience in a variety of previously under-explored national and linguistic settings.

This book provides an extended exploration of the multimodal analysis of spatial (three-dimensional) texts of the built environment, culminating in a holistic approach termed Spatial Discourse Analysis (SpDA). Based on existing frameworks of multimodal analysis, this book applies, adapts, and extends these frameworks to spatial texts. The authors argue that choices in spatial design create meanings about what we perceive and how we can or should behave within spatial texts, influence how we feel in and about those spaces, and enable these texts to function as coherent wholes. Importantly, a spatial text, once built, is also a resource which is then used, and an essential aspect of understanding these texts is to consider what users themselves contribute to the meaning potential of these texts. The book takes the metafunctional approach familiar from Systemic-Functional Linguistics (SFL) and foregrounds each metafunction in turn (textual, interpersonal, experiential, and logical), in relation to the detailed analysis of a particular spatial text.

Few conversational topics can be as significant as our troubles in life, whether everyday and commonplace, or more exceptional and disturbing. In groundbreaking research conducted with John Lee at the University of Manchester UK, Gail Jefferson turned the microscope on how people talk about their troubles, not in any professional or therapeutic setting, but in their ordinary conversations with family and friends. Through recordings of interactions in which people talk about problems they're having with their children, concerns about their health, financial problems, marital and relationship difficulties (their own or other people's), examination failures, dramatic events such as burglaries or a house fire and other such troubles, Jefferson explores the interactional dynamics and complexities of introducing such topics, of how speakers sustain and elaborate their descriptions and accounts of their troubles, how participants align and affiliate with one another, and finally manage to move away from such topics. The studies Jefferson published out of that remarkable period of research have been collected together in this volume. They are as insightful and informative about how we talk about our troubles, as they are innovative in the development and application of Conversation Analysis. Gail Jefferson (1938-2008) was one of the co-founders of Conversation Analysis (CA); through her early collaboration with Harvey Sacks and in her subsequent research, she laid the foundations for what has become an immensely important interdisciplinary paradigm. She co-authored, with Harvey Sacks and Emanuel Schegloff, two of the most highly cited articles ever published in Language, on turn-taking and repair. These papers were foundational, as was the transcription system that she developed and that is used by conversation analysts world-wide. Her research papers were a distinctive and original voice in the emerging micro-analysis of interaction in everyday life.

This book presents developments of discourse analysis in France and applies its tools to key texts from five theorists of structuralism: Lacan, Althusser, Foucault, Derrida and Sollers. It pays special attention to enunciative pragmatics as a poststructuralist approach which analyzes the discursive construction of subjectivity.

Using a wide range of professional genres such as research papers, business reports, performance commentaries, guidebooks and legal documents, this study focuses on the discourse of professional writing, employing analytic paradigms from systemic-functional linguistics, pragmatics, text analysis, sociology and anthropological linguistics. Kenneth Kong argues that while professions use different sets of practices, their use of language displays many universals. This is demonstrated through the analysis of data from a broad cross-section of professional settings such as medicine, law, business, mass media and engineering. This examination of professional discourse, and its important role in society, will be of interest to researchers in applied linguistics, to professionals who want to understand the role of language in their work, and to teachers of English for specific purposes.

People do bad things. They misspeak, mislead, and misbehave. They lie, cheat, steal, and kill. Often, afterward, they apologize. In Sorry About That, linguist Edwin Battistella analyzes the public apologies of presidents, politicians, entertainers, and businessmen, situating the apology within American popular culture. Battistella offers the fascinating stories behind these apologies alongside his own analysis of the language used in each. He uses these examples to demonstrate the ways in which language creates sincere or insincere apologies, why we choose to apologize or don't, and how our efforts to say we are sorry succeed or fail. Each chapter expands on a central concept or distinction that explains part of the apology process. Battistella covers memorable apologies from McDonald's and Martha Stewart, Oprah Winfrey and James Frey, Mel Gibson and Jane Fonda, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and many more. Moving back and forth between examples and concepts, Battistella connects actual apologies with the broader social, ethical, and linguistic principles behind them. Readers will come away from the book better consumers of apologies-and better apologizers as well.

When Donald J. Trump announced his campaign for president in 2015, journalists, historians, and politicians alike attempted to compare his candidacy to that of Governor George C. Wallace. Like Trump, Wallace, who launched four presidential campaigns between 1964 and 1976, utilized rhetoric based in resentment, nationalism, and anger to sway and eventually captivate voters among America's white majority. Though separated by almost half a century, the campaigns of both Wallace and Trump broke new grounds for political partisanship and divisiveness. In Fear, Hate, and Victimhood: How George Wallace Wrote the Donald Trump Playbook, author Andrew E. Stoner conducts a deep analysis of the two candidates, their campaigns, and their speeches and activities, as well as their coverage by the media, through the lens of demagogic rhetoric. Though past work on Wallace argues conventional politics overcame the candidate, Stoner makes the case that Wallace may in fact be a prelude to the more successful Trump campaign. Stoner considers how ideas about "in-group" and "out-group" mentalities operate in politics, how anti-establishment views permeate much of the rhetoric in question, and how expressions of victimhood often paradoxically characterize the language of a leader praised for "telling it like it is." He also examines the role of political spectacle in each candidate's campaigns, exploring how media struggles to respond to-let alone document-demagogic rhetoric. Ultimately, the author suggests that the Trump presidency can be understood as an actualized version of the Wallace presidency that never was. Though vast differences exist, the demagogic positioning of both men provides a framework to dissect these times-and perhaps a valuable warning about what is possible in our highly digitized information society.

A leading figure of the Scottish Enlightenment, George Campbell (1719-96) began to write what was to become his most famous work, The Philosophy of Rhetoric, soon after his ordination as a minister in 1748. Later, as a founder of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society, he was able to present his theories, and these discourses were eventually published in 1776. In the spirit of the Enlightenment, Campbell combined classical rhetorical theory with the latest thinking in the social, behavioural and natural sciences. A proponent of 'common sense' philosophy, he was particularly interested in the effect of successful rhetoric upon the mind. Published in two volumes, the work is divided into three books. Volume 1 contains Book 1 and part of Book 2. Book 1 emphasises the necessity of acknowledging and adapting to the needs of an audience. In Book 2, Campbell expands on the linguistic tools a successful rhetorician should employ.

A leading figure of the Scottish Enlightenment, George Campbell (1719-96) began to write what was to become his most famous work, The Philosophy of Rhetoric, soon after his ordination as a minister in 1748. Later, as a founder of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society, he was able to present his theories, and these discourses were eventually published in 1776. In the spirit of the Enlightenment, Campbell combined classical rhetorical theory with the latest thinking in the social, behavioural and natural sciences. A proponent of 'common sense' philosophy, he was particularly interested in the effect of successful rhetoric upon the mind. Published in two volumes, the work is divided into three books. Volume 2 contains the concluding part of Book 2 and all of Book 3, which shows the author at his most intricate, expanding upon the correct selection, number and arrangement of words required for successful argument.

In this bestselling Reader, Jaworski and Coupland have collected in one volume the most important and influential articles on discourse analysis. Designed as a structured sourcebook and divided into clear sections, The Discourse Reader covers the foundations of modern discourse analysis and represents all of its contemporary methods and traditions. The third edition: Has been revised and updated throughout to ensure a selection of up to date and accessible readings Includes new readings by Jan Blommaert, Norman Fairclough, James Paul Gee, Barbara Johnstone, Ron Scollon and Don Zimmerman, among others. Features papers by leading researchers commissioned especially for the new edition. The general introduction serves as an essential introduction to the field of discourse analysis, while the section introductions provide a useful overview and further insight into the readings. The third edition of The Discourse Reader is a key resource for all students of discourse analysis in a wide range of disciplines from linguistics to communication studies, anthropology and psychology.

This introductory textbook presents a variety of approaches and perspectives that can be employed to analyze any sample of discourse. The perspectives come from multiple disciplines, including linguistics, sociolinguistics, and linguistic anthropology, all of which shed light on meaning and the interactional construction of meaning through language use. Students without prior experience in discourse analysis will appreciate and understand the micro-macro relationship of language use in everyday contexts, in professional and academic settings, in languages other than English, and in a wide variety of media outlets. Each chapter is supported by examples of spoken and written discourse from various types of data sources, including conversations, commercials, university lectures, textbooks, print ads, and blogs, and concludes with hands-on opportunities for readers to actually do discourse analysis on their own. Students can also utilize the book's comprehensive companion website, with flash cards for key terms, quizzes, and additional data samples, for in-class activities and self-study. With its accessible multi-disciplinary approach and comprehensive data samples from a variety of sources, Discourse Analysis is the ideal core text for the discourse analysis course in applied linguistics, English, education, and communication programs.

E-mail is a common medium of communication in academic settings, and its informal nature has given rise to unique discourse strategies that can advantageously combine the norms of oral and written language. Unfortunately, e-mail is also a potential source of misunderstanding. Some teachers, annoyed by the informalities that characterize this discourse context, interpret students' messages as demanding, impolite, or unprofessional. For many students, however, e-mail is outdated, and some use it only in the university context, opting to text, facebook, or tweet their family and friends. This book provides a detailed analysis of 1,403 e-mail messages sent by 338 university students to a professor of Spanish and linguistics.This research has several goals: to analyze features of students' messages that reveal their beliefs about the norms for student-teacher e-mail exchanges; to explore the effective incorporation of the conventions of both oral and written language in this particular discourse context; to identify patterns or rhetorical strategies used by students in e-mail to perform certain pragmatic functions, such as making a request, offering an excuse, expressing gratitude, apologizing and complaining; and, to identify students' choice of language for e-mails to their teacher and the pragmatic functions for which they chose to write in their first or second languages. Each of the chapters specifically addresses several pedagogical implications and identifies areas for additional investigation.

Multilingualism and the Periphery is an edited volume that explores the ways in which core-periphery dynamics shape multilingualism. The research focuses on peripheral sites, which are defined by a relationship-be it geographic, political, economic etc.-to some perceived centre. Viewing multilingualism through the lens of core-periphery dynamics allows the contributors to highlight language ideological tensions with regard to language boundary-making, language ownership, commodification and authenticity, as well as the ways in which speakers seek novel solutions in adapting their linguistic resources to new situations and thereby develop innovative language practices. Since the core-periphery relationship is never fixed, but instead constantly renegotiated and mutually constitutive, the essays in the volume are particularly concerned with processes of peripheralization and of centralization. The volume includes ten essays by leading scholars in the field, and introductory and concluding remarks by the volume editors.

Based on approaches from discourse analysis and sociolinguistics, this study proposes an analytical model focusing on the linguistic and discursive means narrators use to construct a variety of identities in everyday stories. This model is further exploited in language teaching to cultivate students' cultural sensitivity and critical literacy.

Gender is a hotly debated topic in the field of education. The role that language plays in educational contexts especially in the classroom has long been acknowledged. Innovatively combining approaches in the analysis of classroom discourse this book offers rich empirical findings as well as being theoretically interesting and valuable.

The book shows how the study of the evolving discourse employed during a political process spanning more than a decade can provide insights for critical discourse analysis, on the one hand, and understanding of a real world political process on the other, thereby demonstrating the potential role for critical discourse analysis in historiography.

Freedom of speech is a tradition distinctive to American political culture, and this book focuses on major debates and discourses that shaped this tradition. It sheds fresh light on key Congressional debates in the early American Republic, developing and applying an approach to fallacy theory suitable to the study of political discourse.

Focuses on the endangering effects of language-ideological processes. This book looks at the challenges imposed by globalization and super-diversity on the nation state and its language situations and ideologies, and demonstrates how many of its problems rise from the tension between late-modern diversity and the (pre-)modernist responses to it.

Writing Science in the Twenty-First Century offers guidance to help writers succeed in a broad range of writing tasks and purposes in science and other STEM fields. Concise and current, the book takes most of its examples and lessons from scientific fields, such as the life sciences, chemistry, physics, and geology, but some examples are taken from mathematics and engineering. The book emphasizes building confidence and rhetorical expertise in fields where diverse audiences, high ethical stakes, and multiple modes of presentation present unique writing challenges. Using a systematic approach-assessing purpose, audience, order of information, tone, evidence, and graphics-it gives readers a clear road map to becoming accurate, persuasive, and rhetorically savvy writers.

This edited collection presents cutting edge research on the process of identity construction in professional and institutional contexts, from corporate workplaces, to courtrooms, classrooms, and academia. The chapters consider how interactants do identity work and how identity is indexed (often in subtle ways) in workplace discourse.

Competence encompasses or overlaps with notions of efficiency, success, accountability, excellence and self-justification. This collection explores ways in which individuals, teams or groups in organizations discursively present themselves as competent to perform tasks or functions, possibly at a superior level.