What is suicide? When does suicide start and when does it end? Who is involved? Examining narratives of suicide through a discourse analytic framework, Discursive Constructions of the Suicidal Process demonstrates how linguistic theories and methodologies can help answer these questions and cast light upon what suicide involves and means, both for those who commit an act and their loved ones. Engaging in close analysis of suicide letters written before the act and post-hoc narratives from after the event, this book is the first qualitative study to view suicide not as a single event outside time, but as a time-extended process. Exploring how suicide is experienced and narrated from two temporal perspectives, Dariusz Galasinski and Justyna Ziolkowska introduce discourse analysis to the field of suicidology. Arguing that studying suicide narratives and the reality they represent can add significantly to our understanding of the process, and in particular its experiences and meanings, Discursive Constructions of the Suicidal Process demonstrates the value of discourse analytic insights in informing, enriching and contextualising our knowledge of suicide.

Deaths by suicide are high: every 40 seconds, someone in the world chooses to end their life. Despite acknowledgement that suicide notes are social texts, there has been no book which analyzes suicide notes as discursive texts and no attempt at a qualitative discourse analysis of them. Discourses of Men's Suicide Notes redresses this gap in the literature. Focussing on men and masculinity and anchored in qualitative discourse analysis, Dariusz Galasinski responds to the need for a more thorough understanding of suicidal behaviour. Culturally, men have been posited to be 'masters of the universe' and yet some choose to end their lives. This book takes a qualitative approach to data gathered from the Polish Corpus of Suicide Notes, a unique repository of over 600 suicide notes, to explore discourse from and about men at the most traumatic juncture of their lives. Discussing how men construct suicide notes and the ways in which they position their relationships and identities within them, Discourses of Men's Suicide Notes seeks to understand what these notes mean and what significance and power they are invested with.

Metalanguage brings together new, original contributions on people's knowledge about language and representations of language, e.g., representations of dialects, styles, utterances, stances and goals in relation to sociolinguistic theory, sociolinguistic accounts of language variation, and accounts of linguistic usage. Drawing on a variety of data sources such as lay and linguists' metalanguage, the media, parliamentary debates, education, and retail shopping, the book comprises four sections and an integrative commentary. The main thematic parts deal with metalanguage in relation to the following issues: the theory of metalanguage, ideology, social evaluation, and stylisation. Other key themes discussed include constructionism, identity formation, in- and out-grouping, deception, discrimination, manipulation, and the increasing semiotisation of the socio-cultural landscape. Apart from the strictly linguistic concerns, some contributions focus on discourse in a broader sense examining meta-commentary construed in modalities other than language. The book follows from and complements a great tradition of the study of metalanguage, reflexivity, and metapragmatics, and offers a new, integrating perspective from various fields of sociolinguistics: perceptual dialectology, variationism, pragmatics, critical discourse analysis, and social semiotics. The broad range of theoretical issues and accessible style of writing will appeal to advanced students and researchers in sociolinguistics and in other disciplines across the social sciences and humanities including linguists, communication researchers, anthropologists, sociologists, social psychologists, critical and social theorists. The book includes chapters by Deborah Cameron, Nikolas Coupland, Dariusz Galasinski, Peter Garrett, Adam Jaworski, Tore Kristiansen, Ulrike Hanna Meinhof, Dennis Preston, Theo van Leeuwen, Kay Richardson, Itesh Sachdev, Angie Williams, and John Wilson.

"Fathers, Fatherhood and Mental Illness" provides the first book-length study examining fathers' experiences of mental illness. It argues that a discourse analytic focus upon the experience of mental illness offers important insights not only to social scientists but also to mental health scholars and practitioners. Using micro-analytic discourse analysis, it shows that mental illness introduces feelings of failure and rejection in fatherhood, stripping away its socially expected authority. This causes an added degree of suffering to mentally ill fathers, as the idea of what it means to be a 'good father' is undermined by mental illness, thus meaning that fathers with a mental illness must carefully manage their identities and relationships. The book finishes with a postulate of a stronger focus on the discursive form of how mentally ill people account for their experiences and thus on their suffering.

Author Dariusz Galasinski employs a discourse analytical approach to the study of deception in The Language of Deception. The book focuses on the deceptive messages themselves -- how language is used to deceive others and what kinds of linguistic devices are used.

Galasinski develops a theory of deception based on his extensive study of debates and interviews of American and British politicians. Actual exchanges such as the one in which a politician is asked the same question 14 times and evades it 14 times, provide fascinating insight into deceptive linguistic practices.

Fathers, Fatherhood and Mental Illness provides the first book-length study of fathers' experiences of mental illness, arguing that a discourse analytic focus upon the experience of mental illness is relevant both to social scientists and mental health scholars and practitioners.

What is suicide? When does suicide start and when does it end? Who is involved? Examining narratives of suicide through a discourse analytic framework, Discursive Constructions of the Suicidal Process demonstrates how linguistic theories and methodologies can help answer these questions and cast light upon what suicide involves and means, both for those who commit an act and their loved ones. Engaging in close analysis of suicide letters written before the act and post-hoc narratives from after the event, this book is the first qualitative study to view suicide not as a single event outside time, but as a time-extended process. Exploring how suicide is experienced and narrated from two temporal perspectives, Dariusz Galasinski and Justyna Ziolkowska introduce discourse analysis to the field of suicidology. Arguing that studying suicide narratives and the reality they represent can add significantly to our understanding of the process, and in particular its experiences and meanings, Discursive Constructions of the Suicidal Process demonstrates the value of discourse analytic insights in informing, enriching and contextualising our knowledge of suicide.

Deaths by suicide are high: every 40 seconds, someone in the world chooses to end their life. Despite acknowledgement that suicide notes are social texts, there has been no book which analyzes suicide notes as discursive texts and no attempt at a qualitative discourse analysis of them. Discourses of Men's Suicide Notes redresses this gap in the literature. Focussing on men and masculinity and anchored in qualitative discourse analysis, Dariusz Galasinski responds to the need for a more thorough understanding of suicidal behaviour. Culturally, men have been posited to be 'masters of the universe' and yet some choose to end their lives. This book takes a qualitative approach to data gathered from the Polish Corpus of Suicide Notes, a unique repository of over 600 suicide notes, to explore discourse from and about men at the most traumatic juncture of their lives. Discussing how men construct suicide notes and the ways in which they position their relationships and identities within them, Discourses of Men's Suicide Notes seeks to understand what these notes mean and what significance and power they are invested with.

This novel and important book brings together insights from cultural studies and critical discourse analysis to examine the fruitful links between the two. Cultural Studies and Discourse Analysis shows that critical discourse analysis is able to provide the analytic context, skills and tools by which we can study how language constructs, constitutes and shapes the social world and demonstrates in detail how the methodological approach of critical discourse analysis can enhance cultural studies. In a richly argued discussion, the authors show how marrying the methodology of critical discourse analysis with cultural studies enlarges our understanding of gender and ethnicity.