Grapholinguistics, the multifaceted study of writing systems, is growing increasingly popular, yet to date no coherent account covering and connecting its major branches exists. This book now gives an overview of the core theoretical and empirical questions of this field. A treatment of the structure of writing systems-their relation to speech and language, their material features, linguistic functions, and norms, as well as the different types in which they come-is complemented by perspectives centring on the use of writing, incorporating psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic issues such as reading processes or orthographic variation as social action. Examples stem from a variety of diverse systems such as Chinese, English, Japanese, Arabic, Thai, German, and Korean, which allows defining concepts in a broadly applicable way and thereby constructing a comparative grapholinguistic framework that provides readers with important tools for studying any writing system. The book emphasizes that grapholinguistics is a discipline in its own right, inviting discussion and further research in this up-and-coming field as well as an overdue integration of writing into general linguistic discussion.

The first dedicated volume of its kind, Visualizing Digital Discourse brings together sociolinguists and discourse analysts examining the role of visual communication in digital media. The volume showcases work from leading, established and emerging scholars from across Europe, covering a diverse range of digital media platforms such as messaging, video-chat, gaming and wikis; visual modalities such as emojis, video and layout; methodologies like discourse analysis, ethnography and conversation analysis; as well as data from different languages. With an opening chapter by Rodney Jones, the volume is organized into three parts: Besides Words and Writing, The Social Life of Images, and Designing Multimodal Texts. From the perspective of these broad domains, chapters tackle some of the major ideological, interactional and institutional implications of visuality for digital discourse studies. The first part, beginning with a co-authored chapter by Crispin Thurlow, focuses on micro-level visual practices and their macro-level framing - all with particular regard for emojis. The second part, beginning with a chapter from Sirpa Leppanen, examines the ways visual resources are used for managing personal relations, and the wider cultural politics of visual representation in these practices. The third part, beginning with a chapter by Hartmut Stoeckl, considers organizational contexts where users deploy visual resources for more transactional, often commercial ends.

The first dedicated volume of its kind, Visualizing Digital Discourse brings together sociolinguists and discourse analysts examining the role of visual communication in digital media. The volume showcases work from leading, established and emerging scholars from across Europe, covering a diverse range of digital media platforms such as messaging, video-chat, gaming and wikis; visual modalities such as emojis, video and layout; methodologies like discourse analysis, ethnography and conversation analysis; as well as data from different languages. With an opening chapter by Rodney Jones, the volume is organized into three parts: Besides Words and Writing, The Social Life of Images, and Designing Multimodal Texts. From the perspective of these broad domains, chapters tackle some of the major ideological, interactional and institutional implications of visuality for digital discourse studies. The first part, beginning with a co-authored chapter by Crispin Thurlow, focuses on micro-level visual practices and their macro-level framing - all with particular regard for emojis. The second part, beginning with a chapter from Sirpa Leppanen, examines the ways visual resources are used for managing personal relations, and the wider cultural politics of visual representation in these practices. The third part, beginning with a chapter by Hartmut Stoeckl, considers organizational contexts where users deploy visual resources for more transactional, often commercial ends.

Today, young people write in their leisure time far more than they did 15 years ago. Most often they use the new media to do their writing. This book explores whether the frequent writing of short messages and e-mails and participation in chats and social networks like Facebook have an influence on writing in school. Are there any similarities and relationships between the texts written in school and the private texts? For the first time, based on comprehensive data from Swiss students, this book provides empirical answers to these questions.