Discourse in Context: Contemporary Applied Linguistics Volume 3

Description

Featuring internationally renowned academics, this volume provides a snapshot of the field of applied linguistics, and illustrates how linguistics is engaging with the idea of 'context'. The book treats discourse as language in the contexts of its use in and above the level of the sentence and as systems of knowledge and beliefs. In using the term context(s), the book understands this as different situations in which discourse is produced and, on the other, how analysts construe context in their work. The volume is thus concerned with language in its context of use (little d discourse), but at the same time, more specifically, in individual chapters, with particular discourses as they are manifested in particular contexts (big D discourses). Well known discourse analysts contribute chapters focussing on different contexts with which they are familiar, viz. business, education, ethnicity and race, gender and sexuality, history, intercultural contexts, lingua franca contexts, media, place, politics, race, and the virtual world. It brings together researchers from different approaches, but all with a commitment to the study of language in context. The contributors themselves represent different approaches to discourse analysis: conversation analysis, corpus linguistics, critical discourse analysis, ethnographic discourse analysis, mediated discourse analysis, multimodal discourse analysis, systemic functional linguistics. Readers are invited to compare and contrast these different contexts and approaches.

Professor John Flowerdew is at the City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Series Editor for Contemporary Applied Linguistics: Professor Li Wei (Birkbeck, UK)

There are to date few [works] that concentrate specifically on context from a discourse analytic perspective [as this book does] ... An ideal resource ... Given its wide-ranging and rich content, this volume will serve as an excellent reference for students, teachers, and researchers in discourse analysis and applied linguistics in general. * Applied Linguistics * Future researchers looking for starting points could consider the varied and complex range of methods used in this volume ... This book will interest researchers and the students they guide into further research topics. * Discourse Studies * A very welcome and thought-provoking read ... All chapters are well-written and introduce their approach to language in context in the clearest possible way. -- Michael Kranert, University College London, UK * The Linguist List * I strongly recommend this volume, as it offers its readers the opportunity to cross their disciplinary border and get insights provided by colleagues with a different expertise and working with different methodologies. Moreover, it provides a solid stepping-stone for further study to any scholar interested in the issue. * Iberica * John Flowerdew presents us with an update and upgrade of discourse studies, much needed when a discipline is exploding with new ideas and approaches. The perpetual renewal of what counts as adequate analysis is the task of any science; Flowerdew offers us the cream of the crop here. -- Jan Blommaert, Professor of Language, Culture and Globalization, University of Tilburg, The Netherlands The papers in this welcome volume collected and edited by John Flowerdew show the complex configurations and the pervasive influence of many types of context in the production, structures and interpretation of many genres of text and talk as well as the urgent need for continued theoretical exploration of the nature of contexts and the context-discourse interface. -- Teun A. van Dijk, Professor of Discourse Studies, Pompeu Fabra University, Spain Given the importance of 'Context' in discourse analysis this book's treatment of how the concept is treated in a wide range of different theories and methodologies makes it an excellent and in-depth introduction to discourse analysis as a whole. Because our understanding of discourse analysis depends on how we conceptualize 'context', the diversity of perspectives on 'context' found in this volume significantly raises awareness of the diversity of 'discourse analysis'. While there is no single theory of context that accounts for the breadth of the discourse settings covered in this volume - the press, the courtroom, schools, the European parliament and so on - analysis of how context is relevant in each of these settings leaves the reader in no doubt as to the theoretical importance of 'Context' in our understanding of the work language does in the social world. -- Jonathan Charteris-Black, Professor of Linguistics, Campus University of West of England, UK