This work is an in-depth analysis of the full breadth of Sojourner Truth's public discourse that places it in its proper historical context and explores the use of humor and narratives as primary rhetorical strategies used by this illiterate ex-slave to create a powerful public persona. The book provides a comprehensive survey of the life of Sojourner Truth, and includes a unique and authoritative compilation of primary rhetorical documents, such as speeches, songs, and public letters.

This is the only major work to date that analyzes the breadth of Sojourner Truth's public discourse. The volume includes a complete and authoritative compilation of her extant rhetoric, including several versions of the same speech, reports of her speaking appearances, public letters published by Truth in newspapers, and songs written and performed by her as part of her public lectures. Three chapters address the rhetorical dimensions of Truth's public persona. First, an historical survey contextualizes her life and speaking from slave to reformer, placing into perspective the variety of experiences that comprised her background. Second, an analysis of Truth's use of humor focuses upon how she employed the strategies of superiority and incongruity in her refutation of opponents and the establishment of her own credibility. Third, a critique of Truth's use of narratives in her discourse reveals how both her speeches and songs rely upon three fundamental stories for their persuasive impact: her slave life and religious conversion, her use of the black jeremiad to portray race differences, and her tales of woman's strength and moral conviction. The volume concludes with a consideration of Truth's status as a folk legend and how she wished to be remembered.

What is semiotics? This term is applied in a wide range of disciplines from literary theory and film to law, architecture and communication studies. But what does it actually mean and how can we use it? "Key Terms in Semiotics "provides exactly the information that a student needs when encountering semiotics for the first time or as a more advanced reader wishing to do in-depth readings.

This book offers a metaphysical development of the notion of perspective. By explaining the functional nature of point of view, and by providing a concrete definition of point of view as a window through which to see the world, it offers a scientific realist theory that explains that points of view are real structures that ground properties and objects as well as perspectives. The notion of point of view has been of key importance in the history of philosophy, and different philosophical schools have used this notion to conduct analyses from the external reality to the inner phenomenal status, or even to construct an entire philosophical system. However, there has been a lack of systematic analysis of what a point of view is and what its structure is; this book fills the gap in the literature and makes the transition between semantics and epistemology, and the philosophy of science.

Logical form has always been a prime concern for philosophers belonging to the analytic tradition. For at least one century, the study of logical form has been widely adopted as a method of investigation, relying on its capacity to reveal the structure of thoughts or the constitution of facts. This book focuses on the very idea of logical form, which is directly relevant to any principled reflection on that method. Its central thesis is that there is no such thing as a correct answer to the question of what is logical form: two significantly different notions of logical form are needed to fulfill two major theoretical roles that pertain respectively to logic and to semantics. This thesis has a negative and a positive side. The negative side is that a deeply rooted presumption about logical form turns out to be overly optimistic: there is no unique notion of logical form that can play both roles. The positive side is that the distinction between two notions of logical form, once properly spelled out, sheds light on some fundamental issues concerning the relation between logic and language.

Challenging the tendency to disparage Nashe's writing as the product of an eccentric sensibility and to explain his texts in journalistic terms more appropriate to modern commercial publishing, this work provides an entirely new interpretation of the economic context of sixteenth-century literature. Lorna Hutson reveals hitherto overlooked links between humanist approaches to the literary text and the transformation of the English economy through humanist-inspired policies of ethical and social reform; from this context, Nashe's textual prodigality emerges as an assault upon the contemporary impoverishment of literary activity caused by the political over-valuing of the printed word. Generic precedents turn out to be festive; each of Nashe's apparently unstructured pamphlets derives shaping energy from traditions of popular-festive mockery. The pamphlets bring an older conception of seasonal prosperity into subversive dialogue with the newer discourse of provident individualism. For Nashe, stylistic experiment is shown to mean more than a choice of style; it is, rather, the expression of an intricate, socially engaged imagination.

Multimodal Discourse Analysis is a comprehensive survey of the ways in which enhanced meaning emerges through the interaction of more than one mode of communication. Different modes of communication covered include: Language. Dynamic and static visual images. Architecture and three-dimensional objects in the realm of material lived-in space, as well as electronic media, film and print. This also includes the study of transition and phase, camera and body movement, typography, layout and the use of colour, and how such choices orientate the viewer to particular readings of the text and context. Multimodal Discourse Analysis will be useful to researchers interested in the application of systemic functional linguistics to media studies, discourse analysis and cognitive linguistics.

Hedging is an essential part of everyday communication. It is a discourse strategy which is used to reduce commitment to the force or truth of an utterance to achieve an appropriate pragmatic effect. In recent years hedges have therefore attracted increased attention in Pragmatics and Applied Linguistics, with studies approaching the concept of hedging from various perspectives, such as speech act - and politeness theory, genre-specific investigations, interactional pragmatics, and studies of vague language. The present volume provides an up-to-date overview of current research on the topic by bringing together studies from a variety of fields. The contributions span a range of different languages, investigate the use of hedges in different communicative settings and text types, and consider all levels of linguistic analysis from prosody to morphology, syntax and semantics. What unites the different studies in this volume is a corpus-based approach, in which various theoretical concepts and categories are applied to, and tested against, actual language data. This allows for patterns of use to be uncovered which have previously gone unnoticed and provides valuable insights for the adjustment and fine-tuning of existing categories. The usage-based approach of the investigations therefore offers new theoretical and descriptive perspectives on the context-dependent nature and multifunctionality of hedges.

Rebirth of Rhetoric brings together contributions from several fields to provide a forum in which a unifying theory for language and literature studies can be debated.The book does not aim to resurrect classical Renaissance rhetoric, but to remake it within a contemporary context. The context of texts (both spoken and written) is one of the main emphases of this collection, whether it is the ideology informing the text, or the way in which a text is transformed by its audience. The book also aims to present a range of practical approaches to the study of texts of all kinds: literary; televisual; film and photography. It also argues the case for developments in the Arts and Humanities which will bring together people working in Education, Linguistics, Composition, Literature and Cultural Studies.

This book is a guide to discourse, discourse analysis and genre, aimed at upper level undergraduates as well as graduate students. It has a student-friendly, inductive approach, leading readers from examples to principles. Using a clear and progressive framework together with genuine discourse examples, students are given a clearly structured understanding of how each dimension of discourse is linked together.

• Offers a clear, authoritative and systematic approach to analyzing real-world texts
• Includes analysis of a wide range of authentic texts
• Provides practical guidance on how to carry out a discourse analysis project

With an explicit focus on genre and genres, it draws on contexts which are highly appealing to students such as forensic and linguistic discourse, and the discourse of texting, internet chat and television. It also offers clear guidance as to how to carry out a discourse analysis project.

In the past two decades there has been considerable interest in the ways in which subjects are positioned in discursive practice. This interest has entailed a focus on the role of language and discourse in the processes in and through which subjects are constituted in discourse. However, questions of agency and how it relates to consciousness have received less attention. This book explores the ways in which agency and consciousness are created through transactions between self and other. The book argues that it is necessary to regard body-brain interactions in the context of the social and discursive practices which act upon human bodies. These issues of agency and individuation are explored in relation to infant semiosis, as well as in relation to children's symbolic play. Thibault looks at the importance of the self-referential moral conscience in relation to the interpersonal dimension of all acts of meaning-making. This conscience is also connected to the development of a self-referential viewpoint which the book argues is connected to the ecosocial semiotic systems of thinking about consciousness as a complex system operating on many different levels. The author discusses and evaluates the work of linguists, psychologists, biologists, semioticians, and sociologists such as Basil Bernstein, Mikhail Bakhtin, J. J. Gibson, M. A. K. Halliday, Walter Kauffman, Lakoff & Johnson, Jay Lemke, Jean Piaget and Stanley Salthe, to develop a new theory of agency and consciousness.

This book examines approaches to carrying out discourse analysis (DA) using techniques that are grounded in corpus linguistics. Assuming no prior knowledge of corpora, the book examines and evaluates a variety of corpus-based methodologies including: collocations, keyness, concordances, dispersion plots, and building and annotating corpora. Illustrated with a number of real-life examples of corpus-based DA from a range of sources and covering a variety of subjects, this is an informative introduction to using corpus linguistics as a methodology in discourse analysis.

The selected speeches of Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine made throughout her 32 year career in the U.S. Congress are critically analyzed in this rhetorical study. The inquiry focuses on the factors of her political persona that garnered her the support of her constituents and the respect of her colleagues. The chapters are each titled with a segment of her political identity-an American, a Republican, and a women. Thus this work will be of interest to students and scholars of U.S. politics, communications, and women's studies. In addition, this popular political figure should be of interest to readers who want to learn more about the first female U.S. Senator.

Languages across the world differ from each other in a number of respects, and one such difference is in terms of how their lexicons are categorized. Compared to most European languages with distinct, functionally dedicated word classes in the traditional sense, quite a few languages are observed to possess lexical items that can fulfill the functions typically associated with more than one traditional word class such as 'noun' and 'verb'. According to Rijkhoff and van Lier (2013), these lexemes exhibit what is called 'flexibility'. Classical Chinese is observed to feature word-class flexibility, in the sense that there are lexemes that can be used to serve the functions of two or more traditional word classes, without the functional change being marked by any derivational means. For instance, a lexical item like xin can either function as a verb meaning 'to be trustworthy [intr.]' or 'to believe, to trust [tr.]' or serve as a noun meaning 'trust, oath of alliance'. Similarly, a human-denoting lexeme such as you FRIEND cannot only mean 'a friend' but also 'to be a friend, to behave friendly [intr.]', 'to make friends with [tr.]' or 'to consider as a friend [tr.]'; an instrument word like bian WHIP cannot only mean 'a whip' but also 'to whip'. This situation is often thought to be related to the fact that Classical Chinese does not have any kind of productive morphology in the traditional sense (e.g. Zadrapa 2011). This is reflected in the lack of markedness distinctions across Croft's (2000, 2001) conceptual space for parts of speech. This study ascribes flexibility of parts of speech in Classical Chinese to precategoriality, in line with Bisang (2008 a, b). Precategoriality can roughly be defined as the absence of the noun-verb distinction in the lexicon; instead, the linking of individual words to the syntactic position of N or V as well as their text frequency in these positions are subject to pragmatics. Precategorial lexical items are those that are not preclassified into parts of speech in the lexicon; rather, their word-class specification is ultimately determined at the syntactic level, according to their position/function in a given word-class indicating construction. From a diachronic viewpoint, this study assumes that precategoriality and categoriality of individual lexical items are not static, but that they are potentialities and tendencies that may change over time. Specifically, (full) precategoriality and (full) categoriality are assumed to constitute a continuum in the lexicon of Chinese throughout its history. In any given historical period, lexical items of the language are distributed between the two extremes on the continuum, according to the intensity of the association between their lexical meaning and the syntactic position/function of e.g. N or V. Generally, along the continuum at a given historical stage, lexemes with a strong association between meaning and function (i.e. lexemes that are normally associated only with one word-class specification for a particular syntactic role) tend to be located close to the extreme of (full) categoriality. In contrast, lexemes that are not necessarily related to one specific association between meaning and function, but can potentially occur in a variety of such associations, are assumed to be placed closer to (full) precategoriality instead. Roughly speaking, the group of lexemes that is located towards (full) precategoriality are flexible lexemes, though with varying degrees of flexibility, whose semantics licenses a syntactic variety and can thus be linked to more than one word-class specification through syntactic specification, a syntactically specified process of category assignment. Based on these considerations, this study aims to present the results of a corpus-based investigation into flexibility of parts of speech in Classical Chinese. The research focuses on two types of syntactic specifications of flexible lexemes, namely, those using action-denoting lexemes in nominal function (the V N type), and those using object-denoting lexemes in verbal function (the N V type). The two types of syntactic specifications are investigated for this study in the five Classical Chinese texts (Zuozhuan, Mengzi, Guoyu, Mozi, and Zhanguoce). Based on empirical facts, flexibility of parts of speech in Classical Chinese is addressed at three descriptive levels in this study: First, at the level of syntax, the discussion focuses on the most important syntactic configurations for the use of flexible lexemes and their relations to the basic word order of this language, with flexibility being observed in two positions of an argument structure construction: the V-position and the syntactic position of an argument. The findings of this study demonstrate that as far as the argument structure constructions formed with flexible lexemes are concerned, VO word order is much more frequent than OV. This strong preference for VO is, in connection with lexical flexibility, explained as follows: With the loss of derivational morphology in early stages of Old Chinese (e.g. Sagart 1999), word order became the most important indicator of word class and strongly supported the omission of strict verb-noun distinctions (co-existence of precategoriality and categoriality) in the lexicon of this language. Second, at the level of cognitive semantics (e.g. Lakoff 1987; Koevecses and Radden 1998; Schoenefeld 2005), the discussion concentrates on the metonymic relationships that constitute the cognitive-semantic foundation of the use of flexible lexemes in Classical Chinese. In a metonymic mapping of either the V N or the N V type, the original semantics of a lexical item (which may typically be associated with a certain syntactic role of N or V) is used as a reference point to provide mental access to the newly derived meaning of the item in another syntactic function. Given the typologically salient characteristics of Classical Chinese discussed in this book, the argument is that the flexible use of an existing word form as a metonymically related but syntactically distinct item is one of the most economic ways in this language to name a new concept or a newly construed situation in discourse. Third, at the level of argument structure constructions (Bisang 2008a, b), the discussion focuses on how the different metonymic relationships mentioned interact with a given argument structure construction (which carries its own meaning within itself), and how these are further concretized into rule-based or metaphorically motivated pragmatic implicatures. A closer examination of an argument structure construction with an object word in the V-position reveals that there are two underlying frameworks for deriving the concrete meaning of the construction. In the rule-based framework, the verbal function of a given object word can basically be derived through grammatical analysis of the whole construction. In the metaphorical framework, the composed semantics of the construction actively interacts with the outside world in our conceptual system, where metaphor (Lakoff 1987, 1993; Koevecses 2010) serves as an essential cognitive principle in establishing and (re-)interpreting relations in the construction. The two mechanisms, rule-based and metaphorical, complement each other and work together to account for flexibility in Classical Chinese. This study argues that flexibility of parts of speech in Classical Chinese can only be fully understood by integrating a wide range of aspects, both linguistic and non-linguistic. The components that are needed to account for it include constructions (form-meaning pairings), semantics (Croft's conceptual space), pragmatic implicatures, metonymies, metaphors, as well as world knowledge as reflected within a culture. In my view, it is reasonable to argue that these components need not be specific to the language investigated here; they are applicable to any language that shows flexibility in its parts-of-speech system.

How should we analyse the meaning of proper names, indexicals, demonstratives and definite descriptions? What relation do such expressions stand to the objects they designate or to mental representations of those objects? George Powell casts new light on these and other questions by approaching them from within a cognitive framework.

Although much has been written about Abraham Lincoln, there has been little rhetorical analysis of how this public man communicated with his listeners. Yet by studying his rhetoric closely, we can gain real insights into Lincoln as an orator, debater, jester, lawyer, statesman, leader, and president. This critical appraisal of his public speaking is linked to transcripts of some major speeches and to a chronology, bibliography, and an index. This useful one-volume reference is intended for students, scholars, and experts in communications and rhetoric, political science, and American studies and history. Lois J. Einhorn presents a rhetorical analysis of Abraham Lincoln's speaking, defining his view toward public speaking, characteristics of his rhetoric, his use of humor, and the development of his various addresses while president. Texts of nine selected speeches are printed exactly. A short chronology of speeches, a selected bibliography of Lincoln as a speaker, and a general index complete this important new reference work.

Benoit, Blaney, and Pier apply the functional theory of political campaign discourse to the 1996 presidential campaign. When a citizen casts a vote, he or she makes a decision about which candidate is preferable. There are only three types of rhetorical strategies for persuading voters to believe a candidate is the better choice: acclaiming or self-praise, attacking or criticizing an opponent, and defending or responding to attacks. As they illustrate, acclaims, if accepted by the audience, make the candidate appear better. Attacks can make the opponent seem worse, improving the source's apparent preferability. If attacked, a candidate can attempt to restore-or prevent-lost credibility by defending against that attack. As Benoit, Blaney, and Pier point out, the functional theory of political communication is relatively new, and their book illustrates it with a detailed analysis of the most recent presidential campaign. One of the major strengths of the study is the variety of message forms examined: television spots, debates, talk radio appearances, keynote speeches, acceptance speeches, speeches by spouses, radio addresses, and free television time remarks. It also examines all three parts of the campaign-primary, nominating conventions, and general campaign. This comprehensive analysis of the '96 presidential campaign will be of considerable use to students, scholars, and other researchers dealing with contemporary American electioneering.

This second edition of the best-selling textbook "Working with Discourse" has been revised and updated throughout. The book builds an accessible set of analytic tools that can be used to explore how speakers and writers construe meaning through discourse. These techniques are introduced in clear steps, through analyses of spoken, written and visual texts that focus on truth and reconciliation in post-apartheid South Africa. The new edition includes a chapter on Negotiation, clear definitions of key terms, chapter summaries and revised suggestions for further reading. Accessibly written and presupposing no prior knowledge of discourse or functional linguistics, this is the ideal textbook for students encountering discourse analysis for the first time at advanced undergraduate or postgraduate level.

This book investigates the historical evolution of figurative language within the framework of cognitive linguistics. It examines how and why metaphors evolve through the ages, and it discusses the role of culture, the patterns of metaphor evolution, and how many people use particular expressions.

This collection of essays examines, in context, eastern Native American speeches, which are translated and reprinted in their entirety. Anthologies of Native American orators typically focus on the rhetoric of western speakers but overlook the contributions of Eastern speakers. The roles women played, both as speakers themselves and as creators of the speeches delivered by the men, are also commonly overlooked. Finally, most anthologies mine only English-language sources, ignoring the fraught records of the earliest Spanish conquistadors and French adventurers. This study fills all these gaps and also challenges the conventional assumption that Native thought had little or no impact on liberal perspectives and critiques of Europe. Essays are arranged so that the speeches progress chronologically to reveal the evolving assessments and responses to the European presence in North America, from the mid-sixteenth century to the twentieth century.

Providing a discussion of the history, culture, and oratory of eastern Native Americans, this work will appeal to scholars of Native American history and of communications and rhetoric. Speeches represent the full range of the woodland east and are taken from primary sources.

An important new volume based on the results of research in language typology, and motivated by the need for a theory to explain them. Professor Croft puts forward a new approach to syntactic

representation and a new model of how language and languages work. He covers a wide range of syntactic phenomena, illustrating these with examples that show the varied grammatical structures of the

world's languages.

The first international volume on the topic of biosemiotics and linguistics. It aims to establish a new relationship between linguistics and biology as based on shared semiotic foundation.

Concise Encyclopedia of Semantics is a comprehensive new reference work aiming to systematically describe all aspects of the study of meaning in language. It synthesizes in one volume the latest scholarly positions on the construction, interpretation, clarification, obscurity, illustration, amplification, simplification, negotiation, contradiction, contraction and paraphrasing of meaning, and the various concepts, analyses, methodologies and technologies that underpin their study. It examines not only semantics but the impact of semantic study on related fields such as morphology, syntax, and typologically oriented studies such as grammatical semantics, where semantics has made a considerable contribution to our understanding of verbal categories like tense or aspect, nominal categories like case or possession, clausal categories like causatives, comparatives, or conditionals, and discourse phenomena like reference and anaphora. COSE also examines lexical semantics and its relation to syntax, pragmatics, and cognitive linguistics; and the study of how logical semantics develops and thrives, often in interaction with computational linguistics.
As a derivative volume from Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics 2nd edition, it comprises contributions from 150 of the foremost scholars of semantics in their various specializations and draws on 20+ years of development in the parent work in a compact and affordable format. Principally intended for tertiary level inquiry and research, this will be invaluable as a reference work for undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as academics inquiring into the study of meaning and meaning relations within languages. As semantics is a centrally important and inherently cross-cutting area within linguistics it will therefore be relevant not just for semantics specialists, but for most linguistic audiences.
* The first encyclopedia ever published in this fascinating and diverse field
* Combines the talents of the world s leading semantics specialists
* The latest trends in the field authoritatively reviewed and interpreted in context of related disciplines.
* Drawn from the richest, most authoritative, comprehensive and internationally acclaimed reference resource in the linguistics area
* Compact and affordable single volume reference format"

In The Magic Prism, Wettstein argues that Wittgenstein, a figure with whom the critics of Frege and Russell are typically unsympathetic, laid the foundation for much of what is revolutionary in recent developments in the movement of philosophy of language.