The use of vague language (for example expressions such as 'bags of time', 'doing stuff', 'sort of thing', 'and all that') is an aspect of communicative competence of considerable social importance. Vague Language Explored examines the function of vague language in context. It spans genre analysis, critical discourse analysis, psycholinguistics and cross-cultural sociolinguistics, in a variety of world cultures. It suggests also applications in TEFL, asking questions such as 'What should learners be taught to understand and use, and why?' and suggesting directions for future research.

This book is a study of techniques used to introduce, continue and change the discourse topic in expository writing. Discourse topic is examined by focusing on the sequential techniques and strategies in a step-by-step process. To describe the process a model of sequentiality is proposed. The aims of the book are to advance current thinking in discourse analysis and to provide a practical exemplar of expository discourse.

This book offers a global exploration of current theory and practice in the teaching of stylistics and the implementation of stylistic techniques in teaching other subjects. Pedagogical stylistics is a field that looks at employing stylistic analysis in teaching, with the aim of enabling students to better understand literature, language and also improving their language acquisition. It is also concerned with the best practice in teaching stylistics. The book discusses a broad range of interrelated topics including hypertext, English as a Foreign Language, English as a Second Language, poetry, creative writing, and metaphor. Leading experts offer focused, empirical studies on specific developments, providing in-depth examinations of both theoretical and practical teaching methods. This interdisciplinary approach covers linguistics and literature from the perspective of current pedagogical methodology, moving from general tertiary education to more specific EFL and ESL teaching. The role of stylistics in language acquisition is currently underexplored. This contemporary collection provides academics and practitioners with the most up to date trends in pedagogical stylistics and delivers analyses of a diverse range of teaching methods.

First published in 1986. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Generative analyses of comparatives traditionally include two construction specific ellipsis operations, Comparative Deletion and Comparative Ellipsis. Drawing from a wide array of new data, the present monograph develops a novel, directly semantically interpretable analysis of comparatives which does not require reference to designated deletion processes. On the one hand, Comparative Deletion is reinterpreted in terms of overt movement of the degree predicate. The resulting head-raising analysis contributes to an understanding of various puzzles for comparatives related to binding, locality and the influence of word-order variation on the interpretation and size of the ellipsis site. On the other hand, it is argued that Comparative Ellipsis can entirely be subsumed under standardly sanctioned ellipsis operations such as Gapping, Right Node Raising and Across-the-Board-movement. In addition, the study presents arguments for an ellipsis analysis of phrasal comparatives (such as Millhouse saw more movies than Bart). Empirical support for this conception derives, among others, from the complex interdependencies between ellipsis and serialization in English and German, and the binding properties of remnants inside the comparative complement. The study is directed towards readers interested in formal syntax and the syntax/semantics interface.

This work describes and analyzes the authors' study of collaborative technical writing in an institutional setting - that of a group of nurses composing the writing of a hospital-based nursing project. This study seeks to provide the context for the authors to draw conclusions on: writing in a collaborative group; the role of discourse in constructing the social dynamics of community groups; and on institutional authorship for virtual audiences.

This book is a comprehensive guide to academic writing and publishing. It approaches the subject from a descriptive foundation for understanding academic tenure and promotion decisionmaking. The book then treats the considerations for selecting the avenues open to an academic for publishing: conference papers, grants, journals, scholarly books, texts, and popular or trade books. Each avenue is given a chapter-length discussion. Electronic media is also described in detail. Finally, Cantor offers a view of the marketing of a book product.

The Bloomsbury Companion to Cognitive Linguistics is a comprehensive and accessible reference resource to research in contemporary cognitive linguistics. Written by leading figures in the field, the volume provides readers with an authoritative overview of methods and current research topics and future directions. The volume covers all the most important issues, concepts, movements and approaches in the field. It devotes space to looking specifically at the major figures and their contributions. It is a complete resource for postgraduate students and researchers working within cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics and those interested more generally in language and cognition.

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.

"Identity Trouble" brings together contributions from a wide variety of discourse fields to discuss the rising pressures on traditional understandings of identity. The focus is on failures and uncertainties in people's construction of their identities when faced with social, cultural, organizational or other changes and fluidities. The contributions raise a number of critical questions about the concept of identity and how it may be refigured, and draw on a wide range of empirical studies of identity problems in personal and social life.

Expository Discourse describes the social science research genre in an entirely original light. The authors present a comprehensive model which characterizes the generic, registerial and discoursal options as they interweave within a text, formulating explicit realization statements that relate the abstract categories of move and act (as described by Swales) to the way these units actually are created by lexical and grammatical choices. The realization networks draw on the work of systemic functional linguists, primarily Halliday, Hasan, Martin, and Ventola.

This book deals with adjectival suffixes in English. Its scope of analysis is confined to the formation of adjective pairs that share a single root but end in different suffixes. Theoretically, the book adopts cognitive semantics and attempts to substantiate some of its tenets. One tenet is that a linguistic item is polysemous by nature. On this basis, the goal is to show that an adjectival suffix forms a category consisting of multiple senses, which gather around a centre. Another tenet is that the meaning of a linguistic item is described relative to the domain of knowledge to which it belongs. In this respect, the goal is to group the adjectival suffixes into sets, where they stand for one concept but differ in the specifics. A further tenet is that the use of a linguistic item is governed by the particular construal imposed on its content. In this regard, the goal is show that no two adjectives are synonymous even if they share the same root or look similar. They differ, as evidenced by corpus data, in terms of the alternate ways the speaker construes their common root. Empirically, the book adopts corpus linguistics, which helps to identify the distinctive collocates associated with the members of an adjective pair and, consequently, reveals the subtle differences in meaning between them.

Denis Donoghue turns his attention to the practice of metaphor and to its lesser cousins, simile, metonym, and synecdoche. Metaphor ("a carrying or bearing across") supposes that an ordinary word could have been used in a statement but hasn't been. Instead, something else, something unexpected, appears. The point of a metaphor is to enrich the reader's experience by bringing different associations to mind. The force of a good metaphor is to give something a different life, a new life. The essential character of metaphor, Donoghue says, is prophetic. Metaphors intend to change the world by changing our sense of it.

At the center of Donoghue's study is the idea that metaphor permits the greatest freedom in the use of language because it exempts language from the local duties of reference and denotation. Metaphors conspire with the mind in its enjoyment of freedom. Metaphor" celebrates imaginative life par excellence, from Donoghue's musings on Aquinas' Latin hymns, interspersed with autobiographical reflection, to his agile and perceptive readings of Wallace Stevens.

When Donoghue surveys the history of metaphor and resistance to it, going back to Aristotle and forward to George Lakoff, he is a sly, cogent, and persuasive companion. He also addresses the question of whether or not metaphors can ever truly die. Reflected on every page of Metaphor" are the accumulated wisdom of decades of reading and a sheer love of language and life.

As we move into the 21st century, broader approaches in governments, industries, and universities are necessary. Governments are increasingly forced to collaborate with other governments to address problems beyond the control of individual nations. Industries increasingly find it difficult to survive without pursuing global markets. Also, universities are moving from departmental to interdisciplinary approaches to curriculums. These changes call for greater scope in goals, social structures, and methodologies. Technical communication is an example of a field deeply involved in all of these institutions and prompted toward greater scope in the engagement of problems. Rhetorical Scope and Performance examines the history of the narrowness of goals, social structures, and methodologies associated with the field of technical communication in the second half of the 20th century. Whitburn traces some of the roots of this narrowness back to a philosophical tradition stemming from Plato, Aristotle, the religious philosophers, and the apologists for science. As an alternative to the narrowness of the philosophical tradition, this work traces a rhetorical tradition stemming from Isocrates, Cicero, Quintilian, and the Renaissance that promotes greater scope in the engagement of problems. This alternative also provides a theoretical construct more appropriate for many of today's needs than the philosophical tradition. Using the history of technical communication as an example, this book shows how an Isocratean rhetoric can broaden and therefore improve our approaches to decision making in the 21st century.

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks, as well as studies that provide new insights by approaching language from an interdisciplinary perspective. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.

This title reveals the depth and complexity of the language used in SMS text communication, and how it exploits various linguistic resources to create identities. Understanding the discourse of text messaging has profound implications for society. SMS messaging has impacted considerably on how we communicate with others. At the same time, negative, sometimes alarmist media coverage continues to fuel debate surrounding its 'damaging' effects on language and children's literacy. To what extent is this true? Should we worry about this communication tool - or embrace it? Drawing on a range of academic sources from various fields, this book describes the language used in a corpus of over 11,000 text messages, as yet the largest collection in the UK. In particular, the book defines text messaging as a language variety shaped by users' creative responses to the functions and limitations of the medium. This is an essential book for upper level undergraduates and postgraduates studying discourse analysis, as well as educators wanting to understand this important new form of discourse. Discourse is one of the most significant concepts of contemporary thinking in the humanities and social sciences as it concerns the ways language mediates and shapes our interactions with each other and with the social, political and cultural formations of our society. "The Continuum Discourse Series" aims to capture the fast-developing interest in discourse to provide students, new and experienced teachers and researchers in applied linguistics, ELT and English language with an essential bookshelf. Each book deals with a core topic in discourse studies to give an in-depth, structured and readable introduction to an aspect of the way language is used in real life.

This monograph presents Old English renderings of Christian words found in interlinear glosses, especially the Gospels and the Psalter glosses. Nouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs in biblical contexts are included through dialectal (Northumbrian, Mercian, and West Saxon) diachronic (early and late West Saxon) and idiolectal (i.e. scribal) comparison. By using interlinear glosses, the correspondence between the original Latin word and the Old English rendering can be recognised more clearly than in ordinary prose, and at the same time, a flexible choice of renderings can be seen in some contexts. The author tries to show which Old English words were chosen as renderings, while some Latin words were accepted without translation.

Where is the space for contemporary environmentalism when both the utopian promises of a clean and pure earthly Eden and the dystopian prophecies of an environmental apocalypse have failed to be fully realized? Rather than falling into one of these familiar environmental categories, contemporary space is configured, as this book outlines, as heterotopia, an in-between space of dissonance, where encounters with waste are a daily occurrence and where dirty matter refuses to submit to human demands and intentions. Through an exploration of a series of spaces in which acts of leisure and recreation are configured alongside vibrant dirty matter, this book explores how contemporary heterotopia offer entanglements with a dirty other that promote novel opportunities for humans to ethically respond and be responsible to the continued presence of waste and to generate a sense of ecological care for a dirty world. In doing so, the book urges readers away from a utopian vision of what the environment should be and instead asks how we can ethically exist within and around the dirtied environment as it is. This book will be of interest to scholars of cultural studies, environmental rhetorics, and environmental ethics.

This book addresses recent developments in the study of tense from a cross-paradigm and cross-linguistic point of view. Leading international scholars explore challenging ideas about tense at the interfaces between semantics and syntax as well as syntax and morphology. The book is divided into three main subsections: 1) Tense in tenseless languages; 2) Tense, mood, and modality, and 3) Descriptive approaches to some tense phenonema. Although time is a universal dimension of the human experience, some languages encode reference to time without any grammatical tense morphology of the verb. Some of these exceptional "tenseless" languages are investigated in this volume: Kalaallisut, Paraguayan Guarani and Movima. Modal verbs are polyfunctional in the sense that they express both tense and modality. In this volume, an untypical modal is analyzed, a modal analysis of imperatives is argued for, and sentential mood, which is closely related to modality, is analyzed. It is always interesting to look at the expression of tense in understudied languages, which is done here for Scottish Gaelic, Austronesian Rukai and German dialects. The volume can be used for graduate and undergraduate level teaching

This book presents a cognitive stylistic analysis of the writing of Siegfried Sassoon, a First World War poet who has typically been perceived as a poet of protest and irony, but whose work is in fact multi-faceted and complex in theme and shifted in style considerably throughout his lifetime. The author starts from the premise that a more systematic account of Sassoon's style is possible using the methodology of contemporary stylistics, in particular Cognitive Grammar. Using this as a starting point, he revisits common ideas from Sassoon scholarship and reconfigures them through the lens of cognitive stylistics to provide a fresh perspective on Sassoon's style. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of stylistics, war poetry, twentieth-century literature, and cognitive linguistics.

This book examines the impact of white racialization in homiletics. The first section, Racial Hegemony, interrogates the white, colonial bias of Euro-American homiletical practice, pedagogy, and theory with particular attention to the intersection of preaching and racialization. The second section, Resistance and Possibilities, contributes diverse critical homiletical approaches emerging in conversation with racially-minoritized scholarship and racially subjugated knowledge and practice. By reading this book, preachers and professors of preaching will encounter alternative, non-dominant homiletical pathways toward a more just future for the church and the world.

This book takes a fresh look at Tolkien's literary artistry from the points of view of both linguistics and literary history, with the aim of shedding light on the literary techniques used in The Lord of the Rings. The authors study Tolkien's use of words, style, narrative techniques, rhetoric and symbolism to highlight his status as literary artist. Dirk Siepmann uses a corpus stylistic approach to analyse Tolkien's vocabulary and syntax, while Thomas Kullmann uses discourse theory, literary history and concepts of intertextuality to explore Tolkien's literary techniques, relating them to the history of English fiction and poetry. Issues discussed include point of view, speeches, story-telling, landscape descriptions, the poems inserted into the body of the narrative, and the role of language in the characterization of the novel's protagonists. This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars of literature, corpus linguistics and stylistics, as well as Tolkien fans and specialists.