Relations and Functions within and around Language

by Michael Cummings (Editor), Peter Fries (Editor), David Lockwood (Editor), William Spruiell (Editor)

Overview

This book describes language as a network of functional relations involving a context which is also a network of functional relations. Part I presents essays from a variety of perspectives on the theory of language as functional relations. Part II presents essays which describe an oral text from a variety of functional perspectives. All of the essays are by linguists interested in oral and written texts who have achieved international recognition in their fields. Illustrated in this book are cognitive, social construction, social praxis and anthropological approaches to the description of text. Currently in linguistics there is a movement towards careful use of corpora in linguistic and text analysis. This movement has involved the use of written corpora, spoken corpora and corpora which consist of combinations of spoken and written text. But little detailed discussion of the language of oral texts has been published. Most text analyses address written texts -- often literary works. This book is among the first to integrate the analysis of the language of spoken and written texts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826453693
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	06/18/2002
Series:	Open Linguistics Series
Pages:	410
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.84(d)

About the Author

Michael Cummings is Professor of English at York University in Canada. Peter H. Fries is Professor of English and Linguistics at Central Michigan University. David G. Lockwood is Professor of Linguistics at Michigan State University, USA. He is co-editor, with Michael Cummings, Peter H. Fries and William Spruiell, of Relations and Functions within and around Language (Continuum, 2001).

Table of Contents

Part 1. Theory. Michael Gregory: Relations and Functions within and around Language: The Systemic-functional Tradition. Jay L. Lemke: Ideology, Intertextuality and the Communication of Science. Paul J. Thibault: Interpersonal Meaning and the Discursive Construction of Action, Attitudes and Values. Peter H. Fries: The Flow of Information in a Written English Text. David G. Lockwood: Intrastratal and Interstratal Relations in Language and their Functions. Terry Threadgold: Linguistics from a Semiotician's Perspective. Part 2. Application. Stephen A. Tyler: Memory and Discourse. David G. Lockwood: Highlighting in Stratificational-Cognitive Linguistics. Sydney Lamb: Interpreting Discourse. Wallace Chafe: Prosody and Emotion in a Sample of Real Speech. Michael Gregory: Phasal Analysis within Communication Linguistics: Two Contrastive Discourses. Peter H. Fries: Some Aspects of Coherence in a Conversation. James R. Martin: Lexical Cohesion, Field and Genre: Parcelling Experience and Discourse Goals.