Ideal for those who are starting a degree in English Language or Linguistics, this textbook covers all the basic knowledge and tools of analysis students need for studying language. It introduces methods of English language description and enables readers to learn about the smallest units of language (sounds) and work through the subsequent levels (morphology and syntax) until the sentence is reached. The book also contains a chapter on basic lexical semantics. The final chapter in the book introduces readers to text structure, discourse and linguistic theory. This book is core reading for students taking introductory modules as part of an English Language or Linguistics degree. It will act as a foundation for more advanced work further into the curriculum.

We tend to think that politicians, copywriters and journalists can affect us by their use of language, but how does this happen, exactly? Critical Discourse Analysis provides us with general theories for explaining the impact texts can have, considering the social and political contexts in which texts are produced and read. Stylistics provides detailed tools of analysis for understanding how texts work. Critical Stylistics combines the strengths of these two approaches to uncover the deep-seated ideologies of everyday texts.
Original and engaging, "Critical Stylistics"
- presents a new amalgamation of stylistics, critical discourse analysis and functional approaches to grammar
- introduces a comprehensive set of tools to help explain and analyse the power of written texts
- examines a wide variety of real texts and provides a wealth of practical worked examples

Building on Raymond Williams' iconic "Keywords" released in 1975, Jeffries and Walker show how some pivotal words significantly increased in use and evolved in meaning during the years of the 'New Labour' project. Focussing on print news media, this book establishes a set of socio-political keywords for the 'Blair Years', and demonstrates how their evolving meanings are indicative of the ideological landscape in Britain at that time, and the extent to which the cultural hegemony of the New Labour project influenced the language of the commentariat. Combining corpus linguistic approaches with critical stylistics the authors conduct an analysis of two newspaper corpora using computational tools. Looking closely at textually-constructed meanings within the data, their investigation of the keywords has a qualitative focus, and sets out a clear methodology for combining corpus approaches with systematic co-textual analysis.

This accessible and lively introduction to semantics and the multi-faceted nature of language guides the student and non-specialist through the major ways in which the English language makes meaning. The author discusses the meaning of linguistic units at all levels of language, from sound to discourse, while studying also the role of theories and models themselves in helping us to understand human linguistic behaviour. Through examples and exercises, readers are encouraged to think through and evaluate complex ideas and theories for themselves.

The Routledge Handbook of Language in Conflict presents a range of linguistic approaches as a means for examining the nature of communication related to conflict. Divided into four sections, the Handbook critically examines text, interaction, languages and applications of linguistics in situations of conflict. Spanning 30 chapters by a variety of international scholars, this Handbook: includes real-life case studies of conflict and covers conflicts from a wide range of geographical locations at every scale of involvement (from the personal to the international), of every timespan (from the fleeting to the decades-long) and of varying levels of intensity (from the barely articulated to the overtly hostile) sets out the textual and interactional ways in which conflict is engendered and in which people and groups of people can be set against each other considers what linguistic research has brought, and can bring, to the universal aim of minimising the negative effects of outbreaks of conflict wherever and whenever they occur. The Routledge Handbook of Language in Conflict is an essential reference book for students and researchers of language and communication, linguistics, peace studies, international relations and conflict studies.

This volume is a collection of original essays focusing on the key pedagogical issues behind the teaching of stylistics. Featuring contributions from authors based in the UK, Europe and overseas, it offers an international overview of how stylistics is currently taught and how the teaching of the discipline might be developed in the future. The volume is divided into two main sections, dealing respectively with larger theoretical issues in the teaching of stylistics and examples of classroom practice and detailed text analysis. In addition, the appendices provide an overview of the history of stylistics in the form of a timeline, short biographies of significant figures in the field and substantial lists of further reading. Teaching Stylistics will be of value to postgraduates new to teaching as well as established teachers, particularly those working at the interface between language and literary studies.

Lesley Jeffries introduces a phenomenon which has not been given the attention it deserves - the contextual construction of oppositional meaning. These are opposites not recognisable as such out of context but that are clearly set up this way in the text concerned. The significance of oppositional meaning is well-known, and has been discussed by scholars for millennia, from Philosophy to Politics. But the main emphasis has always been on the conventional opposite: the opposite recognised by lexical semantics. Starting from socio-cultural viewpoints, moving to original research and then concluding with a new theoretical formulation, this book introduces and consolidates a significant new approach to the analysis of oppositional meaning. It closes with a discussion of the importance of constructed opposition in hegemonic practice and makes a case for the inclusion of opposition as a central tool of critical discourse analysis. It will be essential reading for researchers and graduates in stylistics, linguistics and language studies.

Essays employing close scrutiny of texts to clarify gender issues in feminist literary criticism. One of the major problems in feminist literary criticism is the tendency to generalise when exploring language and gender. This volume clarifies the issues involved and tests generalisations by specific analysis, and in the process defines a "feminist stylistics" - a fresh, practical approach which will serve as a model for future work in this area. The seven essays in the collection analyse widely varying literary texts, using the framework of linguistic theory to address feminist issues. The texts range from Shakespeare's As You Like It to present-day pop songs, and also cover poetry and contemporary fiction. The feminist critics whose approach is under examination include Cixous, Irigaray, Kristeva, Showalter, Woolf and a number of British feminists; and the linguistic models employed cover discourse analysis, politeness theory, lexicalisation and transitivity. Contributors: Clara Calvo, Lesley Jeffries, Marion Lomax, Sara Mills, Louise Sylvester, Anne Varty, Shan Wareing

This volume is a collection of original essays focusing on the key pedagogical issues behind the teaching of stylistics. Featuring contributions from authors based in the UK, Europe and overseas, it offers an international overview of how stylistics is currently taught and how the teaching of the discipline might be developed in the future. The volume is divided into two main sections, dealing respectively with larger theoretical issues in the teaching of stylistics and examples of classroom practice and detailed text analysis. In addition, the appendices provide an overview of the history of stylistics in the form of a timeline, short biographies of significant figures in the field and substantial lists of further reading. Teaching Stylistics will be of value to postgraduates new to teaching as well as established teachers, particularly those working at the interface between language and literary studies.

What's the word that describes the process of making supportive noises when you're listening to someone? What is syntax and how does it differ from grammar? Do you know what a morpheme is? And did you know that it's not only an atom that has a nucleus? The Babel Lexicon of Language is an entertaining and accessible introduction to the key terminology involved in the study of language. It defines over 500 terms and uses contemporary language examples, explaining complex issues in an easy-to-understand way. Written by the expert editorial team behind Babel, the popular language magazine, and assuming no prior knowledge of linguistics, The Babel Lexicon of Language is an invaluable resource for students, teachers and anyone with an interest in language.

This book introduces a new way of looking at how poems mean, drawing on the framework first developed in the author's book Critical Stylistics, but applied here to aesthetic more than ideological meaning. The aim is to empower readers of poetry to articulate the features of poetic language that they come across and explain to themselves and others why these features convey the meanings that they do. While this volume focuses on contemporary poets writing in English and mostly based in the UK and Ireland, the framework will work just as well for other eras' poetry, as well as for other cultures and languages.

The Routledge Handbook of Language in Conflict presents a range of linguistic approaches as a means for examining the nature of communication related to conflict. Divided into four sections, the Handbook critically examines text, interaction, languages and applications of linguistics in situations of conflict. Spanning 30 chapters by a variety of international scholars, this Handbook: includes real-life case studies of conflict and covers conflicts from a wide range of geographical locations at every scale of involvement (from the personal to the international), of every timespan (from the fleeting to the decades-long) and of varying levels of intensity (from the barely articulated to the overtly hostile) sets out the textual and interactional ways in which conflict is engendered and in which people and groups of people can be set against each other considers what linguistic research has brought, and can bring, to the universal aim of minimising the negative effects of outbreaks of conflict wherever and whenever they occur. The Routledge Handbook of Language in Conflict is an essential reference book for students and researchers of language and communication, linguistics, peace studies, international relations and conflict studies.

What's the word that describes the process of making supportive noises when you're listening to someone? What is syntax and how does it differ from grammar? Do you know what a morpheme is? And did you know that it's not only an atom that has a nucleus? The Babel Lexicon of Language is an entertaining and accessible introduction to the key terminology involved in the study of language. It defines over 500 terms and uses contemporary language examples, explaining complex issues in an easy-to-understand way. Written by the expert editorial team behind Babel, the popular language magazine, and assuming no prior knowledge of linguistics, The Babel Lexicon of Language is an invaluable resource for students, teachers and anyone with an interest in language.

Building on Raymond Williams' iconic "Keywords" released in 1975, Jeffries and Walker show how some pivotal words significantly increased in use and evolved in meaning during the years of the 'New Labour' project. Focussing on print news media, this book establishes a set of socio-political keywords for the 'Blair Years', and demonstrates how their evolving meanings are indicative of the ideological landscape in Britain at that time, and the extent to which the cultural hegemony of the New Labour project influenced the language of the commentariat. Combining corpus linguistic approaches with critical stylistics the authors conduct an analysis of two newspaper corpora using computational tools. Looking closely at textually-constructed meanings within the data, their investigation of the keywords has a qualitative focus, and sets out a clear methodology for combining corpus approaches with systematic co-textual analysis.

In this important book, Lesley Jeffries introduces a phenomenon which has not been given the attention it deserves - the contextual construction of oppositional meaning. These are opposites not recognisable as such out of context but that are clearly set up this way in the text concerned. The significance of oppositional meaning is well-known but the main emphasis has always been on the conventional opposite: the opposite recognised by lexical semantics. Starting from socio-cultural viewpoints, moving to original research and then concluding with a new theoretical formulation, this book introduces and consolidates a significant new approach to the analysis of oppositional meaning. It closes with a discussion of the importance of constructed opposition in hegemonic practice and makes a case for the inclusion of opposition as a central tool of critical discourse analysis. It is essential reading for those in stylistics, linguistics and language studies.

Lesley Jeffries introduces a phenomenon which has not been given the attention it deserves - the contextual construction of oppositional meaning. These are opposites not recognisable as such out of context but that are clearly set up this way in the text concerned. The significance of oppositional meaning is well-known, and has been discussed by scholars for millennia, from Philosophy to Politics. But the main emphasis has always been on the conventional opposite: the opposite recognised by lexical semantics. Starting from socio-cultural viewpoints, moving to original research and then concluding with a new theoretical formulation, this book introduces and consolidates a significant new approach to the analysis of oppositional meaning. It closes with a discussion of the importance of constructed opposition in hegemonic practice and makes a case for the inclusion of opposition as a central tool of critical discourse analysis. It will be essential reading for researchers and graduates in stylistics, linguistics and language studies.