Textual Patterns introduces corpus resources, tools and analytic frameworks of central relevance to language teachers and teacher educators. Specifically it shows how key word analysis, combined with the systematic study of vocabulary and genre, can form the basis for a corpus informed approach to language teaching. The first part of the book gives the reader a strong grounding in the way in which language teachers can use corpus analysis tools (wordlists, concordances, key words) to describe language patterns in general and text patterns in particular. The second section presents a series of case studies which show how a key word / corpus informed approach to language education can work in practice. The case studies include: General language education (i.e. students in national education systems and those following international examination programmes), foreign languages for academic purposes, literature in language education, business and professional communication, and cultural studies in language education.

This book systematically depicts the theory of textual patterns (chengshi) of the eight-part essays and logic in ancient Chinese texts. With the rare materials, it covers all the basic and important aspects of the whole process and values of chengshi, such as the transformation of different parts and the coherent expression of the doctrines, the planning of writing, and the application to the aesthetic and pedagogic fields. It also explores the similarities and disparities of logical patterns between ancient Chinese and Western texts. Though entirely fresh and tentative, the contrastive studies get new insights into the logic and philosophical concepts hidden in the writings for better understanding of the uniqueness and richness implied in Chinese culture.

Via a hermeneutics focused on Chinese numerology and concentric arrangements, this book offers a novel construal of the textual universe proper to early China writings. The author lays bare distinguishable patterns of textual composition while relating them to corresponding patterns of thinking. He differentiates rhetorical variants through detailed studies of the Zhuangzi’s Inner chapters, the Laozi, the Analects, and the Huainanzi. The philosophical depth and relevance of the Chinese ancient worldview appear in a fresh light when one unearths the patterns into which its content is embedded. The focus on textual patterns and rhetorical arrangements also facilitates the reading of Chinese classics alongside other traditions. The book will be a valuable reference for scholars and graduate students studying Chinese literary criticism, Chinese philosophy, and comparative philosophy.

Textual Patterns introduces corpus resources, tools and analytic frameworks of central relevance to language teachers and teacher educators. Specifically it shows how key word analysis, combined with the systematic study of vocabulary and genre, can form the basis for a corpus informed approach to language teaching. The first part of the book gives the reader a strong grounding in the way in which language teachers can use corpus analysis tools (wordlists, concordances, key words) to describe language patterns in general and text patterns in particular. The second section presents a series of case studies which show how a key word / corpus informed approach to language education can work in practice. The case studies include: General language education (i.e. students in national education systems and those following international examination programmes), foreign languages for academic purposes, literature in language education, business and professional communication, and cultural studies in language education.

Writing matters, and so does research into real-life writing. The shift from an industrial to an information society has increased the importance of writing and text production in education, in everyday life and in more and more professions in the fields of economics and politics, science and technology, culture and media. Through writing, we build up organizations and social networks, develop projects, inform colleagues and customers, and generate the basis for decisions. The quality of writing is decisive for social resonance and professional success. This ubiquitous real-life writing is what the present handbook is about. The de Gruyter Handbook of Writing and Text Production brings together and systematizes state-of-the-art research. The volume contains five sections, focussing on (I) the theory and methodology of writing and text production research, as well as on problem-oriented and problem-solving approaches related to (II) authors, (III) modes and media, (IV) genres, and (V) domains of writing and text production. Throughout the 21 chapters, exemplary research projects illustrate the theoretical perspectives from globally relevant research spaces and traditions. Both established and future scholars can benefit from the handbook’s fresh approach to writing in the context of multimodal, multi-semiotic text production.

Thomas Middleton and Early Modern Textual Culture is not only a companion to The Collected Works of Thomas Middleton, which every scholar of Renaissance literature will find indispensable. It is also essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the book in early modern Europe. The book is divided into two parts. The first part, on 'The Culture', situates Middleton within an historical and theoretical overview of early modern textual production, reproduction, circulation, and reception. An introductory essay by Gary Taylor ('The Order of Persons') surveys lists of persons written by or connected to Middleton, using the complex relationship between textual and social orders to trace the evolution of textual culture in England during the 'Middleton century' (1580-1679). Ten original essays then focus on Middleton's connections to different aspects of textual culture in that century: authorship (by MacD. P. Jackson), manuscripts (Harold Love), legal texts (Edward Geiskes), censorship (Richard Burt), printing (Adrian Weiss), visual texts (John Astington), music (Andrew Sabol), stationers and living authors (Cyndia Clegg), posthumous publishing (Maureen Bell), and early readers (John Jowett). The second part, 'The Texts', supplies the documentation for claims made in the first part. This includes detailed evidence for the canon and chronology of Middleton's works in all genres, greatly extending previous scholarship, and using the latest corpus-based attribution techniques. A full editorial apparatus is supplied for each item in The Collected Works: an Introduction, which summarizes and extends previous scholarship, is followed by textual notes, recording substantive departures from the control-text, variants between early texts, press-variants, discussions of emendations, and (for plays) an exact transcription of all original stage directions. Cross-references make it easy to move between the two volumes. This authoritative account of the early texts includes some extraordinarily complicated cases, which have never before been systematically collated: 'Hence, all you vain delights' (the most popular song lyric from the Renaissance stage), The Two Gates of Salvation, The Peacemaker, and A Game at Chess (the most complex editorial problem in early modern drama, with eight extant texts and numerous reports of the early performances).

The Construction of Metaphoric Text and Talk: A Discourse Analytic Approach argues that in view of their omnipresence in human thinking and action, metaphors play a very important role in discourse construction and organization and this role can be textural and textual. In order to explore the textual role of metaphors, Meizhen Liao proposes that metaphors in discourse be treated as a complex adaptive system (CAS), which is further composed of two sub-systems, a micro one consisted of the tenor and the vehicle and a macro one made up of different metaphors. The dynamic interaction within the micro system between the tenor and the vehicle in terms of mapping, as well as among the macro system of all the metaphors in the text or talk via competition, cooperation, or complementation contributes to the construction and organization of discourse as an adaptive process in pursuit for the goal or goals of the discourse. In the process of the interaction, emergent textual patterns develop and an adequate analysis of the patterns at both micro and macro as well as deep and surface levels of discourse will shed light on the true nature and pattern of human thinking and action. The author concludes that as metaphor has become entrenched in our conceptual system the study of metaphor as a complex adaptive system in discourse be conducted in its own right.