This introductory textbook presents a variety of approaches and perspectives that can be employed to analyze any sample of discourse. The perspectives come from multiple disciplines, including linguistics, sociolinguistics, and linguistic anthropology, all of which shed light on meaning and the interactional construction of meaning through language use. Students without prior experience in discourse analysis will appreciate and understand the micro-macro relationship of language use in everyday contexts, in professional and academic settings, in languages other than English, and in a wide variety of media outlets. Each chapter is supported by examples of spoken and written discourse from various types of data sources, including conversations, commercials, university lectures, textbooks, print ads, and blogs, and concludes with hands-on opportunities for readers to actually do discourse analysis on their own. Students can also utilize the book’s comprehensive companion website, with flash cards for key terms, quizzes, and additional data samples, for in-class activities and self-study. With its accessible multi-disciplinary approach and comprehensive data samples from a variety of sources, Discourse Analysis is the ideal core text for the discourse analysis course in applied linguistics, English, education, and communication programs.

Italian cinemas after the war were filled by audiences who had come to watch domestically-produced films of passion and pathos. These highly emotional and consciously theatrical melodramas posed moral questions with stylish flair, redefining popular ways of feeling about romance, family, gender, class, Catholicism, Italy, and feeling itself. The Operatic and the Everyday in Postwar Italian Film Melodrama argues for the centrality of melodrama to Italian culture. It uncovers a wealth of films rarely discussed before including family melodramas, the crime stories of neorealismo popolare and opera films, and provides interpretive frameworks that position them in wider debates on aesthetics and society. The book also considers the well-established topics of realism and arthouse auteurism, and re-thinks film history by investigating the presence of melodrama in neorealism and post-war modernism. It places film within its broader cultural context to trace the connections of canonical melodramatists like Visconti and Matarazzo to traditions of opera, the musical theatre of the sceneggiata, visual arts, and magazines. In so doing it seeks to capture the artistry and emotional experiences found within a truly popular form.

There is a lot I can say about what got me started with my poems. Just one poem that really did it. The Door was my first and this is the other side. So, I started writing more in hope to get the emotions out. My little sister was the one who inspired some of my writings. But also, all the times I was put down or told I could not do something. So, I write about what lies deep inside. This book tells of beauty and darkness. Two worlds, light and dark, love and hate. We all have felt this at one point in our lives. We have felt the happiness with family, friends, and yes, our pets. We try so hard to protect them and ourselves. So, I write to tell you if I can do it, you can to. Do not be afraid, I am scared too. I have many fears myself. I use my words to face those fears now, that have terrified me for so many years.

Worlds into Words, Essays in the History of Words organizes worlds of words in 122 essays. Since words recreate the world, the essays recreate the world by treating creative words in eleven essays, the five elements in twenty-four essays, time in seven essays, the five senses and their organs in ten essays, and kin, kindness and character in ten essays, etc. Singly and all together, the essays bring together the conceptual frameworks of our world. Following words creating their worlds, the essays examine fundamental verbal images and their constellations of meaning so basic that we take them for granted. From simplicity to complexity, they point out the many-layered stories that arise from simple words.

This bold and accessible study of human languages and communication explores issues which are at the forefront of today's globalized society. The human species is divided into more than five thousand language groups that do not understand each other. And yet these groups constitute one coherent world language system, connected by multilingual speakers in a surprisingly powerful way. The chances of a language thriving depend on its position in the system. There are thousands of small, peripheral languages, each connected to one of a hundred central languages. The entire system is held together by one global language: English. A language is a ‘hypercollective' good: the more speakers it has, the higher its communication value for each one of them. Thus, when people think that a language is gaining new speakers, that in itself is a reason for them to want to learn it too. That is why, in an age of globalization, only a few languages remain for transnational communication and these often prevail even in national societies. This important book discusses a number of specific constellations in detail: India, Indonesia, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa and the European Union. De Swaan concludes by providing a sober but illuminating view of language policy in multilingual societies. This book will be essential reading for those studying sociology, communication studies and linguistics.

Stories that stay with you long after you have closed the book… Some stories are dark while others are lighthearted. Sometimes, they’re challenging and at other times, accepting. Words that made you question your perception of life and look within yourself to find the meaning you have longed for. With diverse and relatable characters, each story is unique. Divided by theme, the four short story collections in the bundle include: Book 1: Soul Seeks the Truth Book 2: When Love Fails Book 3: Monsters & Mysteries Book 4: Dear Earth with Love: & Other Stories