Maryann Overstreet, Whales, candlelight, and stuff like that: General extenders in English discourse. (Oxford Studies in Sociolinguistics) Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. xii + 171. Hb. $39.95.

2002 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-134
Author(s):  
Catherine N. Ball
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Descriptive Study ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Limiting Factor ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Discourse Functions

Characterizing the discourse functions of linguistic expressions is surely one of the most difficult tasks in linguistic analysis. The starting point for any study of discourse functions is the examination of naturally occurring data; the limiting factor is the lack of well-developed theoretical frameworks for understanding language use. Still, a good descriptive study has lasting value, and empirical claims invite further analysis. Overstreet's study of the “general extenders” or something, and everything, and other members of this class makes a solid contribution on both fronts.

Peter Auer, Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, and Frank Müller. Language in time: The rhythm and tempo of spoken interaction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. xi, 236. Hb $65.00.

2001 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 298-301
Author(s):  
Cecilia E. Ford
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Sound Production ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Complex Signals ◽  
Spoken Discourse ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Spoken Interaction

To understand prosody in naturally occurring language requires an exceptional constellation of skills. One must have not only expertise in the analysis of pitch patterns and the complex signals that make up our perception of stress, but also a rich and informed perspective on how talk works. Although some phonologists are highly sophisticated in their approaches to prosody, empirical research in this area is both heavily based on laboratory-produced data (when it is empirical in that sense), and highly abstract in its descriptive procedures. For their part, analysts of spoken discourse, though basing their descriptions on naturally occurring language, often lack fundamental expertise in the close analysis of sound production and perception. The authors of Language in time are exceptional in the individual and collective skill they bring to their project. In this carefully crafted volume, Peter Auer, Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, and Frank Müller offer an empirically grounded and innovative view of the interplay of prosody and action in spoken language use. The volume focuses on the functions of rhythm in spoken interaction, drawing data from English, Italian, and German, and concentrating on “conversational organization and verbal performance” (p. 33). The work provides a counterbalance to the prevailing dualism in linguistic studies, by which language is first and foremost understood as a system separated from time.

scholarly journals Subjective and intersubjective uses of Japanese verbs of cognition in conversation

Pragmatics ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Misumi Sadler
Keyword(s):  
General Principle ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Type A ◽  
The Other ◽  
Language Form ◽  
Observer Perspective ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Personal Attitudes ◽  
Information Type

The present study examines two commonly-used Japanese verbs of cognition, WAKARU and SHIRU, in naturally occurring conversation, and demonstrates that these verbs are expressions of position and attitude that are relevant both to individual speakers (i.e., subjective uses) and to relational activities among participants (i.e., intersubjective uses). My naturally occurring conversation data supports Lee (2006) that there seems to be a general principle that speakers’ lexical choices are governed by information type, but the link between speakers’ lexical choices and information type is not so absolute but fluid. In fact, while 24% of my data are those where only WAKARU is expected to be used or only SHIRU is expected to be used, 74% are those in which both WAKARU and SHIRU are possible regardless of information type. A closer analysis of such ‘fluid’ examples suggests that speakers choose one expression over another to express their personal attitudes and emotions toward the content of information and toward the other conversation participants. More specifically, their choice for WAKARU manifests such features as experiencer perspective and speaker empathy, and in contrast, their choice for SHIRU is characterized as observer perspective. The study is firmly in keeping with a usage-based perspective on language (e.g., Barlow and Kemmer 2000; Bybee 2006), which takes as its starting point the idea that language use shapes language form and meaning, and offers new insights into the interactional and performative nature of language by addressing the two commonly used verbs of cognition in Japanese conversation from a viewpoint of discourse pragmatics.

Mary Bucholtz, A. C. Laing, & Laurel A. Sutton (eds.), Reinventing identities: The gendered self in discourse. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. xiii, 431. Pb $35.00.

2001 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-278
Author(s):  
Mary M. Talbot
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Language Use ◽  
The United States ◽  
Language Community ◽  
Teenage Girls ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Language And Gender ◽  
On Line ◽  
And Gender

This is the inaugural volume of a new series, Studies in Language and Gender. This substantial book is an edited collection of recent research in the field of language and gender, predominantly but not exclusively focused on language use in the United States. The research represented in its 20 chapters is wide-ranging, both in terms of the genres and media explored in them and in terms of analytic approaches. The genres, media, and locations investigated include, among others, American shopping channel talk (Mary Bucholtz), self-revelatory on-line journals (Laurel Sutton), office interaction (Deborah Tannen), Latina hopscotch in Los Angeles (Marjorie Goodwin), Irish-language community radio (Colleen Cotter), British teenage girls' conversations (Jennifer Coates), and a Tunisian sociolinguistic interview (Keith Walters).

Susan Hoyle & Carolyn Temple Adger (eds.), Kids talk: Strategic language use in later childhood. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Pp. xv, 290. Hb $75.00, pb $35.00.

2000 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-275
Author(s):  
Tony Wootton
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Quality Of Data ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
The Us ◽  
Small Set ◽  
Access And Quality ◽  
Almost All

This is a book containing reports of original research on children aged somewhere between seven and eighteen. All the contributors are based in the US, and with one exception all the thirteen studies were also carried out in the US; the exception, by Marilyn Merritt, also incorporates material from work which she has done in various parts of the African continent. Taken together, the studies cover many aspects of these young people's lives – home, school, playground, voluntary group meetings and work schemes. In most cases, one is struck by the extensive fieldwork which lies behind these research reports. Long periods of observation seem to be commonplace; and the efforts are impressive because, as Shirley Brice Heath points out in her chapter, obtaining naturalistic data from young people of this age can pose problems regarding both access and quality of data. In almost all cases, a corpus of audio or audio-visual recordings forms a basis for at least part of the analysis, though chapters are generally written so as to focus on only a small set of conversation extracts – a strategy which often does little justice to the range of data gathered within the research.

Book Reviews

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-106
Author(s):  
Janet Klein ◽  
David Romano ◽  
Michael M. Gunter ◽  
Joost Jongerden ◽  
Atakan İnce ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Eastern Anatolia ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
National Movement ◽  
The World ◽  
Modern Turkey ◽  
Oxford University Press

Uğur Ümit Üngör, The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913-1950, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, 352 pp. (ISBN: 9780199603602).Mohammed M. A. Ahmed, Iraqi Kurds and Nation-Building. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, 294 pp., (ISBN: 978-1-137-03407-6), (paper). Ofra Bengio, The Kurds of Iraq: Building a State within a State. Boulder, CO and London, UK: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2012, xiv + 346 pp., (ISBN 978-1-58826-836-5), (hardcover). Cengiz Gunes, The Kurdish National Movement in Turkey, from Protest to Resistance, London: Routledge, 2012, 256 pp., (ISBN: 978-0-415—68047-9). Aygen, Gülşat, Kurmanjî Kurdish. Languages of the World/Materials 468, München: Lincom Europa, 2007, 92 pp., (ISBN: 9783895860706), (paper).Barzoo Eliassi, Contesting Kurdish Identities in Sweden: Quest for Belonging among Middle Eastern Youth, Oxford: New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 234 pp. (ISBN: 9781137282071).

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