Of interest in their own terms as a significant cultural practice, reading groups also provide a window on the everyday interpretation of literary texts. While reading is often considered a solitary process, reading groups constitute a form of social reading, where interpretations are produced and displayed in discourse. The Discourse of Reading Groups is a study of such joint conceptual activity, and how this is necessarily embedded in interpersonal activity and the production of reader identities. Uniquely in this context it draws on, and seeks to integrate, ideas from both cognitive and social linguistics. The book will be of interest to scholars in literacy studies as well as cultural and literary studies, the history of reading, applied linguistics and sociolinguistics, digital technologies and educational research.

Of interest in their own terms as a significant cultural practice, reading groups also provide a window on the everyday interpretation of literary texts. While reading is often considered a solitary process, reading groups constitute a form of social reading, where interpretations are produced and displayed in discourse. The Discourse of Reading Groups is a study of such joint conceptual activity, and how this is necessarily embedded in interpersonal activity and the production of reader identities. Uniquely in this context it draws on, and seeks to integrate, ideas from both cognitive and social linguistics. The book will be of interest to scholars in literacy studies as well as cultural and literary studies, the history of reading, applied linguistics and sociolinguistics, digital technologies and educational research.

Provides a clear introduction to the key terms and frameworks in cognitive poetics and stylisticsHow do texts create meaning? How do we arrive at our textual interpretations? Why do we become 'lost in a book' or feel deep emotion in response to a literary character? Through close attention to the way texts are written and the language they use, as well as what we know about the human mind, 'Contemporary Stylistics' provides readers with the tools to begin answering these questions. In doing so, it introduces the theoretical principles and practical frameworks of stylistics and cognitive poetics, supplying the practical skills to analyse your own responses to literary texts. Including innovative activities for students and with case studies of work by writers like Dylan Thomas, EL James and Kazuo Ishiguro, this is a detailed analysis of contemporary stylistics that offers both historical contextualization of the discipline and points towards its possible future direction.Key Features:Introduces the key terms for each contemporary stylistic frameworkOutlines the foundations of the discipline and addresses cutting-edge developments such as reader response research, corpus methods, multimodality and reader emotion Contains practical analyses, innovative exercises for students, and further reading suggestions in each chapterAddresses the recent attention to multimodal and digital literature and research into empiricism and emotionEach topic is explored through original analyses of a wide range of texts, including poetry, prose, dialogue, song lyrics, political discourse, and linguistic transcriptsThere are stylistic and cognitive poetic analyses through the book. The key case studies include:'The Canal' Lee Rourke (2010)'Zang Tumb Tumb' by Marinetti (1914)'River in Spate' by Louis MacNeice'Under Milk Wood' by Dylan Thomas (1954)'Space Sonnet & Polyfilla' by Edwin Morgan (1977)'In Defense of Our Overgrown Garden' by Matthea Harvey (2000)'House of Cards''What is the What' by Dave Eggers (2006)'Ash Wednesday' by Ethan Hawke (2002)'Fresh Meat''Fifty Shades of Grey' by E. L. James (2012)'Received Pronunciation' by Sally Goldsmith (2012)'The house is not the same since you left' by Henry Normal (1993)'The Lives of Others' by Neel Mukherjee (2014)'My Name is Lucy Barton' by Elizabeth Stroud (2016)'How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia' by Mohsin Hamid (2013)'The Unconsoled' by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005)'The One Ronnie''The Girl on the Train' by Paula Hawkins (2015)'I Am The Song' by Charles Causley'Hypothetical' by Maria Taylor'This is the Poem in which I Have Not Left You' by Julia Copus (2012)'13, rue Therese' by Elena Mauli Shapiro (2011)'Illuminae' by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (2015)'Karen' by Blast Theory (2015)'Blood Story' by Melvin Burgess

Provides a clear introduction to the key terms and frameworks in cognitive poetics and stylisticsHow do texts create meaning? How do we arrive at our textual interpretations? Why do we become 'lost in a book' or feel deep emotion in response to a literary character? Through close attention to the way texts are written and the language they use, as well as what we know about the human mind, 'Contemporary Stylistics' provides readers with the tools to begin answering these questions. In doing so, it introduces the theoretical principles and practical frameworks of stylistics and cognitive poetics, supplying the practical skills to analyse your own responses to literary texts. Including innovative activities for students and with case studies of work by writers like Dylan Thomas, EL James and Kazuo Ishiguro, this is a detailed analysis of contemporary stylistics that offers both historical contextualization of the discipline and points towards its possible future direction.Key Features:Introduces the key terms for each contemporary stylistic frameworkOutlines the foundations of the discipline and addresses cutting-edge developments such as reader response research, corpus methods, multimodality and reader emotion Contains practical analyses, innovative exercises for students, and further reading suggestions in each chapterAddresses the recent attention to multimodal and digital literature and research into empiricism and emotionEach topic is explored through original analyses of a wide range of texts, including poetry, prose, dialogue, song lyrics, political discourse, and linguistic transcriptsThere are stylistic and cognitive poetic analyses through the book. The key case studies include:'The Canal' Lee Rourke (2010)'Zang Tumb Tumb' by Marinetti (1914)'River in Spate' by Louis MacNeice'Under Milk Wood' by Dylan Thomas (1954)'Space Sonnet & Polyfilla' by Edwin Morgan (1977)'In Defense of Our Overgrown Garden' by Matthea Harvey (2000)'House of Cards''What is the What' by Dave Eggers (2006)'Ash Wednesday' by Ethan Hawke (2002)'Fresh Meat''Fifty Shades of Grey' by E. L. James (2012)'Received Pronunciation' by Sally Goldsmith (2012)'The house is not the same since you left' by Henry Normal (1993)'The Lives of Others' by Neel Mukherjee (2014)'My Name is Lucy Barton' by Elizabeth Stroud (2016)'How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia' by Mohsin Hamid (2013)'The Unconsoled' by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005)'The One Ronnie''The Girl on the Train' by Paula Hawkins (2015)'I Am The Song' by Charles Causley'Hypothetical' by Maria Taylor'This is the Poem in which I Have Not Left You' by Julia Copus (2012)'13, rue Therese' by Elena Mauli Shapiro (2011)'Illuminae' by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (2015)'Karen' by Blast Theory (2015)'Blood Story' by Melvin Burgess

Stylistics has become the most common name for a discipline which at various times has been termed 'literary linguistics', 'rhetoric', 'poetics', 'literary philology' and 'close textual reading'. This Handbook is the definitive account of the field, drawing on linguistics and related subject areas such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, educational pedagogy, computational methods, literary criticism and critical theory. Placing stylistics in its intellectual and international context, each chapter includes a detailed illustrative example and case study of stylistic practice, with arguments and methods open to examination, replication and constructive critical discussion. As an accessible guide to the theory and practice of stylistics, it will equip the reader with a clear understanding of the ethos and principles of the discipline, as well as with the capacity and confidence to engage in stylistic analysis.