Offering the first systematic examination of five modern Japanese fictional narratives, all of them available in English translations, Atsuko Sakaki explores Natsume Sōseki’s Kokoro and The Three-Cornered World; Ibuse Masuji’s Black Rain; Mori Ōgai’s Wild Geese; and Tanizaki Jun’ichirō’s Quicksand. Her close reading of each text reveals a hitherto unexplored area of communication between narrator and audience, as well as between “implied author” and “implied reader.” By using this approach, the author situates each of these works not in its historical, cultural, or economic contexts but in the situation the text itself produces.

Humor may surface in numerous and diverse contexts, which at the same time determine how humor works, its form, and its functions and consequences for interlocutors. Adopting a sociolinguistic and discourse analytic perspective, this study is aligned with approaches to humor exploring the variety of humorous genres, the wide range of sociopragmatic functions of humor, and the more or less dissimilar perceptions speakers may have concerning what humor is, what it means, and how it works. The chapters of this book propose a new theoretical approach to the analysis of humor by bringing context into focus. Furthermore, the study explores how we can teach about humor within a critical literacy framework creating classroom space for everyday humorous texts that are part of students’ social realities, and simultaneously taking into account that humor may yield multiple, disparaging, and often conflicting interpretations. This book is intended to appeal to humor researchers from various disciplines (such as linguistics, media studies, cultural studies, literary studies, sociology, anthropology, folklore) as well as to professionals or researchers in education.

Currently there is an enduring and changing meaning of social work in a world where new crises are being confronted and new opportunities are arriving in the evolving context of social work and the related disciplines. There is a question on how to manage the transformation of social work both productively and creatively during this global shift. Practitioners and educators can experience a tragic disorientation when confronted by the diversity and depth of these crises endured and can face doubts about their role in social work throughout all these changes and difficult situations. Alternatives to this disorientation, a comfort with uncertainty, and a capability to take risks need to urgently be developed on a professional and personal level for success in the evolving field. Through historical lens and a review of policies and value-based approaches, the recontextualization of social work can be explored. Practical and Political Approaches to Recontextualizing Social Work explores practical and political ways in which social work practice has been reconstructed. Chapters identify this recontextualization of social work and how it is changing, adapting, and transforming the profession along with providing the potential implications for the profession. This book grants insight on the reconstruction of social work on the personal and interpersonal level (“case” work) and also on those intending to impact social work on the local/global environment level in all dimensions: politically, economically, socially, and ecologically. In addition, the book includes a shift from the present short-term and micro/personal view to a future and much broader and encompassing perspective and practice vision. This book is essential for social workers, practitioners, policymakers, government officials, researchers, academicians, and students who want to learn more about the recontextualizing of modern social work in a shifting global environment.

Offering the first systematic examination of five modern Japanese fictional narratives, all of them available in English translations, Atsuko Sakaki explores Natsume Sōseki's Kokoro and The Three-Cornered World; Ibuse Masuji's Black Rain; Mori Ōgai's Wild Geese; and Tanizaki Jun'ichirō's Quicksand.

In the humanities and social sciences, context is one of those terms which is frequently used and frequently referred to, but hardly made explicit. This book proposes a model for describing the multifaceted connectedness between language and language use, and between cognitive context, linguistic context, social context and sociocultural context and their underlying principles of well-formedness, grammaticality, acceptability and appropriateness. Combining a range of theoretical frameworks in linguistics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis and philosophy of language, Fetzer goes beyond the unilateral conception of speech and argues for a dialogue outlook on natural-language communication based on dialogue principles and dialogue categories. The most important ones are cooperation, joint production, micro and macro communicative intentions, micro and macro validity claims, co-suppositions, dialogue-common ground and communicative genre.

In this book Vernon K. Robbins provides an accessible introduction to socio-rhetorical criticism, illustrating the method by guiding the reader through the study of specific New Testament texts and stories. An opening chapter outlines this new approach and its focus on values, convictions, and beliefs both in the text we read and in the world in which we live. Then follow studies and exercises dealing with specific textural features: inner texture, intertexture, social and cultural texture, ideological texture, and sacred texture.

This practical analytical guide to classroom languaging dynamics in L2 tertiary classrooms integrates multimodality, sociological theory of education and ecosocial semiotic perspectives. It offers a theoretical and methodological framework for conducting multimodal analysis of meaning-making processes in different pedagogical settings. The multimodal investigation of real-time classroom interactivity showcases an embodied coordination of vocalization and gesticulation in classroom interactions, where it varies from students’ solo speech in individual presentations, to teacher-student interactions in group discussions, and to student-student interactions in role-play. With a unified conceptual framework articulating both the macro and micro analysis, this book proposes more ecological-based approaches to language and unpacks a multi-scalar analytical framework to open up for an embodied analysis of meaning-making processes in multimodal interaction analysis. The rich systematic analysis built upon the ecosocial semiotic approach illustrates in practice how theoretical frameworks link to empirical data analysis through exemplified analytical processes and practices, and demonstrates the value of how multimodal interaction analysis contributes to the understanding of the cognitive dynamics of languaging activities that take place in L2 educational contexts. The book provides not only a practical methodological guide to multimodal interaction analysis, but also hands-on analytical references to multimodal classroom research in the field. In addition to early career scholars and PhD students, this volume will be valuable for international academics looking for complementary frameworks or approaches to multimodality, particularly in the L2 Asian contexts.