Subjectivity in Language and in Discourse deals with the linguistic encoding and discursive construction of subjectivity across languages and registers. The aim of this book is to complement the highly specialized, parallel and often separate research strands on the phenomenon of subjectivity with a volume that gives a forum to diverse theoretical vantage points and methodological approaches, presenting research results in one place which otherwise would most likely be found in substantially different publications and would have to be collected from many different sources. Taken together, the chapters in this volume reflect the rich diversity in contemporary research on the phenomenon of subjectivity. They cover numerous languages, colloquial, academic and professional registers, spoken and written discourse, diverse communities of practice, speaker and interaction types, native and non-native language use, and Lingua Franca communication. The studies investigate both already well explored languages and registers (e.g. American English, academic writing, conversation) and with respect to subjectivity, less studied languages (Greek, Italian, Persian, French, Russian, Swedish, Danish, German, Australian English) as well as many different communicative settings and contexts, ranging from conference talk, promotional business writing, academic advising, disease counselling to internet posting, translation, and university classroom and research interview talk. Some contributions focus on individual linguistic devices, such as pronouns, intensifiers, comment clauses, modal verbs, adjectives and adverbs, and their capacity of introducing the speaker's subjective perspective in discourse and interactional sequence; others examine the role of larger functional categories, such as hedging and metadiscourse, or interactional sequencing.

An incisive account of the relationship between language and identity, illuminating the role of language in racism, sexism, colonialism and similar social forces.

This book investigates the notion of subjectivity from a pragmatic point of view. There have been attempts to reduce the notion of the speaker or subjectivity as a syntactic category, or to seek an explanation for it in semantic terms. However, in order to understand the vast range of subjectivity phenomena, it is more fruitful to examine how the attributes and the experience of the real speaker affect language. The volume provides a theoretical/methodological basis for the study of various aspects of language and discourse and applies these specifically to Japanese spoken discourse, for which the data are added in an appendix.

The emotional aspects of language have so far not received the attention they deserve. This study focuses on nonpropositional, i.e. expressive and interactional meanings of Japanese signs, with special emphasis on understanding their cognitive, psychological and social meanings. It shows how the Japanese language is richly endowed to express personal voice and emotive nuances, and confronts the theoretical issues related to this. The author proposes a new theoretical framework for Discourse Modality, a primary concern for Japanese speakers, to analyze the 'expressiveness' of language.

This volume contributes to the burgeoning field of research on stance by offering a variety of studies based in natural discourse. These collected papers explore the situated, pragmatic, and interactional character of stancetaking, and present new models and conceptions of stance to spark future research. Central to the volume is the claim that stancetaking encompasses five general principles: it involves physical, attitudinal and/or moral positioning; it is a public action; it is inherently dialogic, interactional, and sequential; it indexes broader sociocultural contexts; and it is consequential to the interactants. Each paper explores one or more of these dimensions of stance from perspectives including interactional linguistics and conversation analysis, corpus linguistics, language description, discourse analysis, and sociocultural linguistics. Research languages include conversational American English, colloquial Indonesian, and Finnish. The understanding of stance that emerges is heterogeneous and variegated, and always intertwined with the pragmatic and social aspects of human conduct.

Recent years saw a growing interest in the study of subjectivity, as the linguistic expression of speaker involvement. Intersubjectivity, defined by Traugott as "the linguistic expression of a speaker/writer's attention to the hearer/reader", on the other hand, has so far received little explicit attention in its own right, let alone systematic definition and operationalization. Intersubjectivity and seemingly related notions such as interpersonal meaning, appraisal, stance and metadiscourse, frequently appear in cognitive-functional accounts, as well as historical and more applied approaches. These domains offer (partly) conflicting uses of 'intersubjectivity', differ in the overall scope of the concept and the phenomena it may cover.This book brings together contributions from a variety of different approaches, with the aim of disentangling the current web of intertwined notions of intersubjectivity. Rather than focusing on the potentially conflicting views, the volume aspires to resolve some of the conceptual puzzle by cross-fertilization between the different views, and spark discussion on how to operationalize 'intersubjectivity' in linguistic research. Originally published in English Text Construction 5:1 (2012).

Subjectification is a widespread phenomenon and has emerged as a most pervasive tendency in diachronic semantic change (Traugott) and in synchronic semantic extension (Langacker). Its importance is increasingly valued despite the fact that it is an area that has been treated differently by different scholars. One of the book's objectives is to generate a clearer understanding of the two major models of subjectivity, to see where they can meet but also where intrinsic differences present barriers to any integration. Another objective is to speculate on whether the notions of subjectivity and subjectification have reshaped our understanding of grammar. The goals of the volume are the following: The volume brings together contributions dealing with particular areas of grammar in the framework of subjectivity and subjectification. Starting with Stein and Wright's 1995 edition, publications on the specific process have broadened the scope of this research. Indeed, the question 'how far have we come?', addressed in the introduction, has become central in reaching a clearer understanding of the above framework and even expanding it. Individual papers explore not only wider questions and implications on the theoretical status of subjectivity and subjectification in language, but are empirically supported by thorough and extensive data from different languages (Asian languages, German, Spanish, Greek, Dutch, English). These studies of particular areas of grammar (modals, adjectives) or of levels of analysis (syntax) can help implement or adapt the existing accounts of subjectivity made in the literature. The challenge for every single paper is to show whether the two major approaches (Langacker's and Traugott's) can possibly be integrated or whether they are fundamentally different. The papers also investigate into the questions whether we have a continuum from highly subjective to more objective, whether subjective need be opposed to objective, or whether subjective may also be understood in contrast to neutral (which is often the case in Traugott's examples of grammaticalization). Furthermore, the issue of intersubjectivity, i.e., putting the addressee's perspective onstage, is also discussed.