For decades, social perspectives, and even academic studies of language, have considered cliches as a hackneyed, tired, lazy, unthinking and uninspiring form of communication. Authored by two established scholars in the fields of Systemic-Functional Linguistics and Discourse Studies and Pragmatics, this cutting-edge book comprehensively explores the perception and use of cliches in language from these complementary perspectives. It draws data from a variety of both written and spoken sources, to re-interrogate and re-imagine the nature, role and usage of cliches, identifying the innovative and creative ways in which the concepts are utilised in communication, interaction, and in self-presentation. Observing a rich, complex layering of usage, the authors deconstruct the many and varied ways in which cliches operate and are interdependently constructed; from the role they play in discourse in general, to their functions as argumentative strategies, as constructs of social cognition, as politeness strategies, and finally as markers of identity.

For decades, social perspectives, and even academic studies of language, have considered cliches as a hackneyed, tired, lazy, unthinking and uninspiring form of communication. Authored by two established scholars in the fields of Systemic-Functional Linguistics and Discourse Studies and Pragmatics, this cutting-edge book comprehensively explores the perception and use of cliches in language from these complementary perspectives. It draws data from a variety of both written and spoken sources, to re-interrogate and re-imagine the nature, role and usage of cliches, identifying the innovative and creative ways in which the concepts are utilised in communication, interaction, and in self-presentation. Observing a rich, complex layering of usage, the authors deconstruct the many and varied ways in which cliches operate and are interdependently constructed; from the role they play in discourse in general, to their functions as argumentative strategies, as constructs of social cognition, as politeness strategies, and finally as markers of identity.