Adding a new introduction and two previously unpublished papers, Discourse and Practice: New Tools for Critical Discourse Analysis brings together van Leeuwen's methodological work on discourse analysis of the last 15 years. Discourse, van Leeuwen argues, is a resource for representation, a knowledge about some aspect of reality which can be drawn upon when that aspect of reality has to be represented, a framework for making sense of things. And they are plural. There can be different discourses, different ways of making sense of the same aspect of reality that serve different interests and will therefore be used in different social contexts.
However abstract some discourses are, discourses ultimately always represent doings, van Leeuwen argues. Doing is the foundation of knowing, and social practices are the foundation of discourses. Studying children's books, newspaper reports, brochures and other texts, as well as photographs and children's toys, van Leeuwen investigates what can happen when practices are transformed into discourses and provides analytical tools for reconstructing discourses from texts.
Throughout the book, van Leeuwen makes connections between sociological and linguistic or semiotic concepts and methods to ensure the social and critical relevance of his analytical categories. van Leeuwen's work has already been widely used by critical discourse analysts across the world. This volume will be a welcome guide for anyone looking for a form of discourse analysis that is both explicit and methodical, and critically incisive.

This book is the study of all codes of life with the standard methods of science. The genetic code and the codes of culture have been known for a long time and represent the historical foundation of this book. What is really new in this field is the study of all codes that came after the genetic code and before the codes of culture. The existence of these organic codes, however, is not only a major experimental fact. It is one of those facts that have extraordinary theoretical implications. The first is that most events of macroevolution were associated with the origin of new organic codes, and this gives us a completely new reconstruction of the history of life. The second implication is that codes involve meaning and we need therefore to introduce in biology not only the concept of information but also the concept of biological meaning. The third theoretical implication comes from the fact that the organic codes have been highly conserved in evolution, which means that they are the greatest invariants of life. The study of the organic codes, in short, is bringing to light new mechanisms that have operated in the history of life and new fundamental concepts in biology.

Smith examines the major canons of classical rhetorical theory by demonstrating their influence on Christian speakers. He begins by explaining why charisma has become a misused term. He then explores why writing about charisma has been so difficult in terms of the academic prejudice in favor of objectivity and reason. He then constructs a three- level definition of charisma to replace the current one.

After analyzing the charisma of Jesus in terms of the three personae he developed as teacher, human, and messiah, Smith argues that his power arose from this rich development of character. The textual charisma of the Gospel narrators is explored in terms of their narrative techniques, and Smith then examines the concept of "ethos," the use of emotion in persuasion, and explicates the theories of leading existential thinkers to develop advanced notions of human responsibility and transcendent spirituality. These two notions are used to refine and improve previous definitions of charisma. Smith then establishes a matrix that crosses levels of charisma with different types of identification. This work will be of particular interest to scholars, students, and researchers involved with Christianity, philosophy, and persuasion.

This unique volume focuses on religion and spirituality, along with rituals, practices and symbols, discussed and analysed from a semiotic perspective. It covers both cognitive and social dimensions of religious practices and beliefs, various aspects of spirituality, multiple forms of representation, as well as spheres of religious beliefs and practices. The volume is an outcome of the Signum-Idea-Verbum-Opus project initiated by Umberto Eco’s keynote address during his visit at the University of Łódź in 2015. More theoretical insights and further explorations into contemporary semiosphere can be found in Current Perspectives in Semiotics: Signs, Signification and Communication and Current Perspectives in Semiotics: Texts, Genres and Representations, published by Peter Lang.

This book introduces readers to linguistic stylistic analysis and combines both literary and linguistic analysis to explore suspense in crime fiction. Employing critical linguistics, discourse analysis and functional grammar, it demonstrates that suspense in plot-based stories is created through non-linear, causative presentation of the narrative. The author investigates how plot sequence is manipulated to ensure the reader cannot resolve the order of events until the end of the tale. From two-dimensional circumstantial detection in mystery stories to three-dimensional re-evaluation of offender orientation, she uses a linguistic-based stylistic framework to analyse offender motive. She also employs a 'discourse-based' frame analysis to examine the plot structure of crime stories for micro context and set-up scenarios, demonstrating that it is the unravelling of these devices that creates the suspense in murder mysteries and thrillers alike. Finally, she shows how grammaticization of the offending-self reveals an embedded diegetic space in the offender engagement discourse, provoking an intellectual and affective response and reshaping our overall outlook of the crime in the story. This book will appeal to researchers and students from literary and non-literary backgrounds looking for theoretical and practical advice on the linguistic stylistic approach to reading texts.

This reference is the only book-length work to analyze all of the major speeches of one of the most significant politicians of the first part of the twentieth century, Robert La Follette, Sr. His speeches offer historic snapshots into the Progressive era and of the thinking of an outstanding governor of Wisconsin, U.S. senator, and social agitator. This rhetorical biography analyzes key speeches and provides texts demonstrating how Senator La Follette used melodramatic scenarios to enlist citizens in his reform crusade against the gravest danger that he saw in this country. This reference also provides texts of his most important speeches, a chronology of his major orations, and a lengthy bibliography. This unique volume is designed for students and specialists in political communication, rhetorical criticism, and American studies. This systematical analysis of Senator La Follette's public speeches is a short and highly readable history of the Progressive era, World War I and its aftermath, and the early 1920s from the perspective of a leading political figure of the times. The analysis of La Follette's rhetorical strategy illuminates his use of confrontational tactics, such as the filibuster in Congress to educate the voter and to plead for reforms that he considered essential. This reference provides the texts of five seminal orations and the most complete bibliography of speeches available to date.

What is the role of rhetoric in a civil society? In this thought-provoking book, James L. Kastely examines works by writers from Plato to Jane Austen and locates a line of thinking that values rhetoric but also raises questions about the viability of rhetorical practice. While dealing principally with literary theory, rhetoric, and philosophy, the author's arguments extend to practical concerns and open up the way to deeper thinking about individual responsibility for existing injustices, for inadvertently injuring others, and for silencing those without power.

Challenging the traditional claim that Plato is the chief opponent of rhetoric, Kastely contends that he was its most sophisticated theorist. Plato, Sophocles, and Euripides, the author asserts, recognized an essential paradox: while urgently believing in the need for rhetoric in a world where injustice cannot be eliminated, they nevertheless regarded the possibilities of rhetoric with skepticism. Tracing the modern recovery of a skeptical rhetorical tradition to Jane Austen, the author argues that Sartre's work displays the incoherence within modernist thought on discourse and reveals the tensions between two strains of postmodern thought -- deconstructionism and Marxism. Kastely concludes by showing how the rhetorical theorist Kenneth Burke has returned to the insights of classical rhetoric in order to balance a skeptical stance toward persuasion with a commitment to act in a world with persistent injustice.

This volume offers a current reading of the Italian writer, Pirandello. The author examines the representation of gender relations in Pirandello's writing in the light of recent developments in textual analysis. She reassesses Pirandello's status as an innovative, avant-garde writer, arguing that whilst on the level of dramatic form he is certainly avant-garde, he is not so on the more covert level of gender relations. The author uses contemporary feminist theory to show how textual analysis can expose the covert reinforcement of patriarchal values. The study provides an illustration of a variety of methods which could be applied to texts other than those of Pirandello's.

The volume brings together the papers read at the international conference on Romance Objects organized by the Linguistics Department of the Roma Tre University. It is characterized by a striking uniformity of approach, which is functional, and of methodology. The various case studies regarding the object focus on the syntax/semantics and syntax/pragmatics interfaces. The common denominator of the ten enquiries is the identification of the object category, the DO in particular, in Romance languages; at the same time some of the contributors relate the specific topic to more general questions of linguistic typology. Some of the essays are based on the analysis of data from a corpus and present a diachronic picture of the evolution of the specific topic investigated. Thus this volume is addressed not only to scholars interested in the Romance languages but also all those who study the object category in a cross-linguistic perspective. Michela Cennamo: (In)transitivity and object marking: some current issues.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

What is the connection between what is said on TV and how it is said? Structured around four key features of the current broadcast landscape (storytelling, closeness, conflict and persuasion), "Television Discourse" examines the specific forms and structures of talk across media genres as varied as exploitative shows and political interviews.

"Metaphor Networks" focuses on the historical evolution of metaphor and proposes new theories on language change based on substantial empirical data. It explores how the metaphors of today are very often linked to images existing in the past and traces metaphor paths back to the Middle Ages and Antiquity. The findings reveal that regular patters of evolution emerge and the aims of the book are to find out what lies behind these patterns.

Since we need words with new meanings to discover what is true, it follows that without those words there could be no truth as we know it. Without just those words that we create there would be no knowledge for us. In that case knowledge is found embedded in the very words that we formulate. Interpretation and definition as rhetorical and logical modes are interactive in determining and precising meaning that transcends our repertoire of literal usage. "Language use" by abandoning old trails of usage and by refining usage gives us the opportunity and freedom to explore and discover what never has been thought about, used, or expressed before.

The area of research on printed word recognition has been one of the most active in the field of experimental psychology for well over a decade. However, notwithstanding the energetic research effort and despite the fact that there are many points of consensus, major controversies still exist.

This volume is particularly concerned with the putative relationship between language and reading. It explores the ways by which orthography, phonology, morphology and meaning are interrelated in the reading process. Included are theoretical discussions as well as reviews of experimental evidence by leading researchers in the area of experimental reading studies. The book takes as its primary issue the question of the degree to which basic processes in reading reflect the structural characteristics of language such as phonology and morphology. It discusses how those characteristics can shape a language's orthography and affect the process of reading from word recognition to comprehension.

Contributed by specialists, the broad-ranging mix of articles and papers not only gives a picture of current theory and data but a view of the directions in which this research area is vigorously moving.

This text offers an interdisciplinary account of reference and categorization within the framework of cognitive linguistics. Central issues are the distinction between lexical vagueness and polysemy as well as the creation of new meanings in English and German. Polysemy is resolved by a computational implementation in a machine-translation system.

The generation of meaning is the most fundamental process of the mind. It underlies all major mental functions, such as intelligence, memory, perception, and communication. Not surprisingly, it has been one of the most difficult processes to understand and represent in a model of human cognition. Dr. Christine Hardy introduces two fundamental concepts to address the complexity and richness of meaning. First, she discusses Semantic Constellations, which constitute the basic transversal network organization of mental and neural processes. Second, she addresses a highly dynamic connective process that underlies conscious thought and constantly gives birth to novel emergents or meanings. Taken together, Hardy asserts, the mind's network architecture and connective dynamics allow for self-organization, generativity, and creativity. They can also account for some of the most interesting facets of mental processes, in particular, nonlinear shifts and "breakthroughs" such as intuition, insights, and shifts in states of consciousness. This connective dynamic does not just take place within the mind. Rather, it involves a continuously evolving person-environment interaction: meaning is injected into the environment, and then retrojected, somewhat modified, back into the psyche. This means that, simultaneously, we are both perceiving reality and subtly influencing the very reality we perceive: objects, events, and other individuals. The way in which we think and feel, both individually and collectively, interacts with the physical world and directly shapes the society in which we live. The very same connective dynamic, Hardy shows, is the foundation for those rare yet striking transpersonalexperiences known as synchronicity and psychic phenomena. We live in a world in which we interact with reality at a very fundamental level. Hardy's work is a major analysis for scholars and researchers in the cognitive sciences, psychology, and parapsychology.

Plato in the Third Sophistic examines the influence and impact of Plato and Platonism in the era of Byzantine and Christian rhetoric. The volume brings together specially commissioned articles from leading scholars of late antique philosophy and literature. Their examinations show that Plato is the single most important and influential literary figure used to frame the literature of this time. Plato in the Third Sophistic will help scholars and students from a wide range of disciplines to better understand the development of Christian literature in this era as an essential link in the history of Platonism as well as that of Christianity.

This book is intended to contribute to the clarification of the linguistic research area covered by the terms modal, evidential and epistemic. It sets out to demonstrate that on cross-linguistic grounds a hitherto overlooked epistemic meaning domain must be given due recognition in linguistic theory, on a par with domains such as time and number. The relevant domain is coherent, but at the same time complex in that it consists of two subdomains: one which comprises degree-of-certainty meanings, and one which comprises information-source meanings. The book offers three arguments for giving recognition to such a meaning domain. The first argument concerns the clustering of linguistic expressions with epistemic meaning into morphosyntactically delimited systems of elements. The second argument has to do with the variation pertaining to the coding of epistemic meanings, as highlighted in a semantic map of epistemic expressions. The third argument turns upon the scope properties of epistemic meanings and the morphosyntactic reflections of these properties. Finally, the book proposes a unified cognitive analysis of epistemic meaning in terms of which it attempts to account for the properties of the epistemic meaning domain as well as of individual epistemic meanings.

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

Distinguished researchers from around the world examine the interplay between gender and metaphor in political language in Great Britain, the United States, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, and Singapore. They draw on a wide variety of corpus data to determine to what extent metaphors used by women in political power differ with, or remain the same as that of men. They also examine what effect metaphor use has on women's power in the political arena. This wide-ranging collection of language-based studies will interest students and researchers in discourse analysis, political communication, gender studies, journalism, and media studies.