This book offers a critical reflection on interpersonal positioning across both large- and small-scale contexts and highlights the multi-faceted nature of intercultural communication in today’s global world. The volume establishes positioning primarily as the negotiation of interpersonal relationships, and draws on concepts from across disciplines by way of reappraisal before applying them to two specific domains: MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) and private ELF couple interaction. While acknowledging and showcasing the unique features of positioning in these two contexts, Klötzl and Swoboda point to their commonalities by looking at how language and specifically English is used as a communicative resource in lingua franca situations. The book also identifies new directions for future methodological innovations in that it demonstrates how the same interaction can be looked at in methodologically-different ways and how the authors’ own positions projected on to such interaction create an integrated tri-partite perspective on the two domains. Shedding light on interpersonal positioning in different contexts and in turn on global communication more generally, this book will be of particular interest to students and researchers in discourse analysis, pragmatics, computer-mediated communication, sociolinguistics, and applied linguistics.

English is undoubtedly the lingua franca of global communication today, and plays a major role in the internationalisation of universities, where it is increasingly being used as the medium of instruction. The use of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) in higher education has spread at different speeds throughout Europe over recent decades, with Nordic and central-western countries leading the way and the regions of southern Europe lagging behind. In Italy, English-taught programmes are a rather new and emerging phenomenon which needs to be empirically investigated to uncover the complex mechanisms of classroom interaction in this foreign language. The present volume focuses on one aspect of ELF academic exchanges that is deemed crucial in the transmission of knowledge in the educational setting, namely the management of interpersonal relations and the expression of interpersonal stance in the classroom. To this end, a model has been developed along the four dimensions of formality, power, social distance and respect, and has been applied to the analysis of a corpus of ELF lectures recorded in an Italian university. The examination of naturally occurring ELF lectures reveals a complex combination of linguistic strategies that lecturers exploit at the macro-level of discourse (interpersonal episodes) and at the micro-level of lexis and morpho-syntax (direct questions, comprehension checks, imperatives, personal pronouns, and terms of address) to express interpersonal meanings and build rapport with their students, in response to specific expressive and communicative requirements brought about by ELF academic interaction.

The Routledge Handbook of World Englishes constitutes a comprehensive introduction to the study of World Englishes. Split into six sections with 40 contributions, this Handbook discusses how English is operating in a wide range of fields from business to popular culture and from education to new literatures in English and its increasing role as an international lingua franca. Bringing together more than 40 of the world’s leading scholars in World Englishes, the sections cover historical perspectives, regional varieties of English from across the world, recent and emerging trends and the pedagogical implications and the future of Englishes. The Handbook provides a thorough and updated overview of the field, taking into account the new directions in which the discipline is heading. This second edition includes up-to-date descriptions of a wide range of varieties of English and how these reflect the cultures of their new users, including new chapters on varieties in Bangladesh, Uganda, the Maldives and South Africa, as well as covering hot topics such as translanguaging and English after Brexit. With a new substantial introduction from the editor, the Handbook is an ideal resource for students of applied linguistics, as well as those in related degrees such as applied English language and TESOL/TEFL.

This textbook provides a succinct, contemporary introduction to intercultural communication with a focus on actual language use. With English as a lingua franca and Communicative Accommodation Theory as the underpinning concepts, it explores communication, language use, and culture in action. Each chapter includes discourse extracts so that students can apply what they have learned to real text examples, and supplementary instructor materials including suggestions for discussion points and activities are hosted on springer.com. The book will be key reading for students taking modules on Intercultural Communication or Language, Culture and Communication as part of a degree in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, or English Language both at undergraduate and postgraduate level.

This book adopts a corpus-based discourse analysis approach to the study of the communicative practices of pick-up artists, offering a systematic exploration of distinct language use in an online community that uses speed-seduction practices for short-term dating and sex. Drawing on a multi-million-word corpus comprising data from online forums, social media, informational websites, and YouTube videos, the volume explores the verbal practices and narrative framing techniques that pick-up artists (PUAs) draw upon in their interactions with women and the terminology-heavy language used in teaching pick-up to foster perceptions of scientific validity. The book also unpacks videos and reports of live interactions to study naturally occurring PUA discourse from different perspectives but also to more closely examine conceptual metaphors of competition and violence and critically reflect on the ethical considerations of working with such communities. This book will appeal to students and scholars in such disciplines as discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, computer-mediated communication, and language and media, as well as those interested in the study of language use online.

La comunicazione interculturale è il filo rosso che attraversa quasi tutti i contributi di questo volume. Negli ultimi venti anni tale nozione è stata esplorata e, più recentemente, rivisitata in una prospettiva ELF in diverse aree di ricerca come, ad esempio, la comunicazione strategica d’affari, la consapevolezza interculturale, l’insegnamento delle lingue, la formazione docenti, i discorsi socioculturali, così come gli stessi studi interculturali. Scopo di questo libro è fornire ai lettori una selezione di articoli recenti e stimolanti, nonché contribuire alla fiorente crescita di pubblicazioni su ELF. Il libro è diviso in tre parti, che coprono tre temi principali: 1) ELF, insegnamento delle lingue e la formazione dei docenti; 2) La comunicazione in contesti migratori e plurilingui; atteggiamenti e interazioni; 3) ELF nel mondo degli affari e in quello universitario. Il volume contiene ventiquattro capitoli scritti da studiosi e ricercatori che hanno partecipato al Convegno Internazionale ELF6, svoltosi a Roma presso l’Università Roma Tre nel 2013. I contributi si fondano sulle presentazioni da loro fatte in occasione di tale convegno.

This collection brings together perspectives on regional and social varieties of British English in fictional dialogue across works spanning various literary genres, showcasing authorial and translation innovation while also reflecting on their impact on the representation of sociolinguistic polarities. The volume explores the ways in which different varieties of British English, including Welsh, Scots, and Received Pronunciation, are portrayed across a range of texts, including novels, films, newspapers, television series, and plays. Building on metadiscourse which highlighted the growing importance of accent as an emblem of social stance in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the chapters in this book examine how popular textual forms create and reinforce links between accent and social persona, and accent and individual idiolect. A look at these themes, as explored through the lens of audiovisual translation and the challenges of dubbing, sheds further light on the creative resources authors and translators draw on in representing sociolinguistic realities through accent. This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in dialectology, audiovisual translation, literary translation, and media studies.