Based on approaches from discourse analysis and sociolinguistics, this study proposes an analytical model focusing on the linguistic and discursive means narrators use to construct a variety of identities in everyday stories. This model is further exploited in language teaching to cultivate students' cultural sensitivity and critical literacy.

This study mainly focuses on the reciprocal relationship between language and identity in Chinese police-suspect investigative interviews. Based on the theory of interpersonal pragmatics, it makes a general micro analysis of discursive practices of both police officers and suspects and explores the multiple identities constructed in the interaction. Identities constructed by police officers and suspects are not necessarily consistent with their predetermined institutional roles. Police officers not only project and construct powerful identities, but also intentionally construct their less powerful interactional identities, such as helpers, interlocutors, and listeners. Suspects in the investigative interviews also build multifaceted identities, such as confessors, storytellers or justifiers. Various factors such as institutional settings, communicative objectives, interlocutors, epistemics and interpersonal relationships may exert influence on participants’ identity construction. Police officers and suspects may choose or adjust their expressions according to local interactional contexts. Their linguistic choice in the interaction will affect the establishment of interpersonal relationship between them and ultimately achieve construction of multiple identities.

This edited book examines modern foreign language teachers who research their own and others’ experiences of identity construction in the context of living and teaching in UK institutions, primarily in the Higher Education sector. The book offers an insight into a key element of the educational and socio-political debate surrounding MFL in the UK: the teachers’ voices and their sense of agency in constructing their professional identities. The contributors use a combination of empirical research and personal reflection to generate knowledge about MFL teachers’ identity that can enhance how they are perceived in the social and educational establishments and raise awareness of key issues affecting the profession. This book will be of particular interest to language teachers, teacher trainers, applied linguists and students and scholars of modern foreign languages.

This book examines how discourse analysts could best disseminate their research findings in real world settings. Each chapter presents a study of spoken or written discourse with authors putting forward a plan for how to engage professional practice in their work, using this volume’s Framework for Application. Techniques used include Conversation Analysis in combination with other methods, Genre Analysis in combination with other methods, and Critical Discourse Analysis. Contributions are loosely grouped by setting and include the following: workplace and business settings; education settings; private and public settings; and government and media settings. The volume aims to link the end of research and the onset of praxis by helping analysts to move forward with ideas for dissemination, collaboration and even intervention. The book will be of interest to all researchers conducting discourse analysis in professional settings.

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.

This monograph explores the diverse sociopragmatic functions and meanings of humorous discourse in various online contexts affecting its use. To this end, an analytical model is proposed which takes into consideration the aspects of context which are relevant to the production and reception of humor, and hence to its sociopragmatic analysis. The model is employed for addressing research questions such as the following: Why may an utterance/text be intended and perceived as humorous by some speakers and fail for others? How and why may speakers attempt to regulate language use through humor? Why and how may the same humorous utterance/text engender diverse and contradictory interpretations? How do speakers create social groups and project social identities through humor? How could the sociopragmatic analysis of humor form the basis for teaching about humor within a critical literacy framework?

The ongoing migration ‘crisis’ in European countries (2015 to date) has fostered different stances and practices within European nation-states, ranging from xenophobia to solidarity. In this context, two contradictory discourses seem to coexist: the national racist discourse and the humanitarian, antiracist one. This volume brings together studies investigating diverse semiotic strategies through which liquid racism emerges, which consists of ambiguities and contradictory interpretations due to the fact that racist views infiltrate discourse intended as antiracist. The volume includes critical and pragmatic analyses of texts coming from various sources, such as news articles, parliamentary discourse, political cartoons, video clips, advertising campaigns based on personal stories, and jokes. It is an outcome of the research project “TRACE: Tracing Racism in Anti-raCist discoursE: A critical approach to European public speech on the migrant and refugee crisis” (HFRI-FM17-42, HFRI 2019-2022, Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation).