This book emphasizes the advantages of examining discourse connectivity from a constructionist perspective and highlights the role of discourse configurations in the construction of meaning. The research contained advances the field of cognitive classification and categorization of discourse constructions. The text is a great improvement in the discourse analysis literature, since it uniquely clarifies the subtleties of meaning between different discourse markers that are frequently treated as equivalent by lexicographers. It is unique in being the first contribution to the creation of a Constructicon at the discourse level and it fills an important gap within cognitively oriented constructionist accounts that have mostly restricted their analyses to argument-structure and illocutionary constructions. This yearbook appeals to students and researchers working within corpus linguistics.

This study deals with interactional processes in conversational discourse, and the way they may get 'syntacticized' into grammatical constructions. It investigates the link between discourse function and syntactic form, and the ways in which grammatical form is a reflection on communicative function, through examining the communicative functions of Left-Dislocation in English. The investigation is corpus-based, and focuses on spontaneous conversation, but other discourse types are also taken into account. The overall perspective is resolutely empirical, and preconceptions about the possible functions of Left-Dislocation are avoided. Contents 1. Theoretical preliminaries; 2. Referent-introduction (1): interaction; 3. Referent-introduction (2): recoverability; 4. Referent-introduction (3): topicality; 5. Other functions of LD; 6. Prosodic aspects of LD; 7. LD in other discourse types; 8. A broader perspecitive; 9. General conclusion; Notes, Appendices, References, Subject and author indices.

This volume sets out to foreground the issues of youth identity in the context of current sociolinguistic and discourse research on identity construction. Based on detailed empirical analyses, the twelve chapters offer examinations of how youth identities from late childhood up to early twenties are locally constructed in text and talk. The settings and types of social organization investigated range from private letters to graffiti, from peer group talk to video clips, from schoolyard to prison. Comparably, a wide range of languages is brought into focus, including Danish, German, Greek, Japanese, and Turkish. Drawing on various discourse analytic paradigms (e.g. Critical Discourse Analysis, Conversation Analysis), the contributions examine and question notions with currency in the field, such as young people's linguistic creativity and resistance to mainstream norms. At the same time, they demonstrate the embeddedness of constructions of youth identities in local activities and communities of practice where they interact with other social identities and factors, in particular gender and ethnicity.

This edited volume showcases new work on discourse analysis by big names in the field and promising early-career researchers. Arising from the latest in the series of IWoDA workshops in Santiago de Compostela, it provides novel insights into both the explicit and the implicit characteristics of discourse as used in verbal interaction. Discourse markers, as their name indicates, are among the explicit signals of coherence, while discourse relations may be either explicit or implicit. Similarly, the discourse used for purposes of evaluation, stance-taking and interpersonal engagement is either overt or covert, as is also true of the expression of emotions and empathy. This, in general terms, is the challenging terrain into which the contributors to this volume have ventured. The book combines theoretical issues with a practical orientation, comparing languages, analysing different registers, studying the openings of Skype conversations, and much more besides; it will prove highly relevant for postgraduate and advanced practitioners of discourse analysis, interaction studies, semantics and pragmatics.

Alcorn (English and humanities, George Washington U.) argues that the gradual shift in the teaching of composition from a curriculum that looked at literature as an attempt to represent reality to one that stresses the subjectivity of the student in decoding texts has incorporated an insufficiently complex understanding of subjectivity. The current cultural studies programs stress political ideas over expressive writing, but Alcorn argues that political ideas will never be right unless there is attention to self-expression. Basing his work in the conceptual world of psychoanalytic theory, he outlines a cultural-studies practice that develops anti-ideological identity. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Grammar, Meaning, and Concepts: A Discourse-Based Approach to English Grammar is a book for language teachers and learners that focuses on the meanings of grammatical constructions within discourse, rather than on language as structure governed by rigid rules. This text emphasizes the ways in which users of language construct meaning, express viewpoints, and depict imageries using the conceptual, meaning-filled categories that underlie all of grammar. Written by a team of authors with years of experience teaching grammar to future teachers of English, this book puts grammar in the context of real language and illustrates grammar in use through an abundance of authentic data examples. Each chapter also provides a variety of activities that focus on grammar, genre, discourse, and meaning, which can be used as they are or can be adapted for classroom practice. The activities are also designed to raise awareness about discourse, grammar, and meaning in all facets of everyday life, and can be used as springboards for upper high school, undergraduate, and graduate level research projects and inquiry-based grammatical analysis. Grammar, Meaning, and Concepts is an ideal textbook for those in the areas of teacher education, discourse analysis, applied linguistics, second language teaching, ESL, EFL, and communications who are looking to teach and learn grammar from a dynamic perspective.

Unexpressed Subjects in English: An Empirical Analysis of Narrative and Conversational Discourse challenges previous assumptions of what is grammatically possible in English through an examination of contexts in which speakers omit subjects, demonstrating how language structure is influenced by communicative needs. Through corpus-based analysis of both interactive conversations and monologic narratives, Amy M. Lindstrom reveals how the discourse/pragmatic factors of accessibility and chronological ordering, the prosodic effect of linking, and the mechanical effect of priming intersect to provide a rigorous account of subject (un)expression in spoken American English. Higher degrees of linking, cohesion, and connection lead to more unexpressed subjects. Lindstrom also analyzes frequent constructions with unexpressed subjects vis-à-vis paths of grammaticalization. The author presents a measurement of discourse connectedness that shows how the intersection of prosody and pragmatics illustrates the powerful effect of spontaneous discourse in shaping grammar. This study adds to our understanding of language and cognition by contributing to our knowledge of the conceptualization, categorization, and representation of experience and memory.