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Language In Social Life

About the Book Series

Language in Social Life is a major new series which highlights the importance of language to an understanding of issues of social and professional concern. It will be of practical relevance to all those wanting to understand how the ways we communicate both influence and are influenced by the structures and forces of contemporary social institutions.

17 Series Titles


Misunderstanding in Social Life Discourse Approaches to Problematic Talk

Misunderstanding in Social Life: Discourse Approaches to Problematic Talk

1st Edition

By Juliane House, Gabriele Kasper, Steven Ross
January 22, 2003

Misunderstanding is a pervasive phenomenon in social life, sometimes with serious consequences for people's life chances. Misunderstandings are especially hazardous in high-stakes events such as job interviews or in the legal system. In unequal power encounters, unsuccessful communication is ...

Knowledge & Discourse Towards an Ecology of Language

Knowledge & Discourse: Towards an Ecology of Language

1st Edition

By Colin Barron, Nigel Bruce, David Nunan
January 15, 2002

Knowledge and Discourse presents an ecological approach to the study of discourse in social, academic and professional practices. It brings together distinguished scholars from diverse cultures - India, China, Australia, Canada among others - and disciplines - linguistics, anthropology, sociology, ...

Sociolinguistics and Social Theory

Sociolinguistics and Social Theory

1st Edition

By Nikolas Coupland, Srikant Sarangi, Christopher N. Candlin
May 25, 2001

The empirical and descriptive strengths of sociolinguistics, developed over more than 40 years of research, have not been matched by an active engagement with theory. Yet, over this time, social theorising has taken important new turns, linked in many ways to linguistic and discursive concerns. ...

The Power of Tests A Critical Perspective on the Uses of Language Tests

The Power of Tests: A Critical Perspective on the Uses of Language Tests

1st Edition

By Elana Shohamy
January 12, 2001

Language in Social Life is a major series which highlights the importance of language to an understanding of issues of social and professional concern. It will be of practical relevance to all those wanting to understand how the ways we communicate both influence and are influenced by the ...

Typography & Language in Everyday Life Prescriptions and Practices

Typography & Language in Everyday Life: Prescriptions and Practices

1st Edition

By Sue Walker
December 12, 2000

Typography and Language in Everyday Life provides a detailed look at graphic as well as linguistic aspects of language and suggests there is much to be gained from collaboration between typographers and applied linguists.The first part of the book provides an introduction to aspects of typographic ...

Small Talk

Small Talk

1st Edition

By Justine Coupland
June 20, 2000

This study presents a new perspective on small talk and its crucial role in everyday communication. The new approach presented here is supported by analyses of interactional data in specific settings - private and public, face-to-face and telephone talk. They vary from gossip at the family dinner ...

Writing Business Genres, Media and Discourses

Writing Business: Genres, Media and Discourses

1st Edition

By Francesca Bargiela-Chiappini, Catherine Nickerson
April 27, 1999

Writing Business: Genres, Media and Discourses offers an analysis of the genres and functions of written discourse in the business context, involving a variety of modes of communication. The evolution of new forms of writing is a key focus of this collection and is only partly attributable to the ...

Language and Literacy in Workplace Education Learning at Work

Language and Literacy in Workplace Education: Learning at Work

1st Edition

By Giselle Mawer
March 22, 1999

Just as workers are confronting the rapidly changing practices of the restructured, technological workplace and the increasing convergence of working and learning, so those involved in any form of workplace education or training are also restructuring their focus, teaching methods and approaches. ...

Interpreting As Interaction

Interpreting As Interaction

1st Edition

By Cecilia Wadensjo
October 02, 1998

Interpreting in Interaction provides an account of interpreter-mediated communication, exploring the responsibilities of the interpreter and the expectations of both the interpreter and of other participants involved in the interaction. The book examines ways of understanding the distribution of ...

Mediated Discourse as Social Interaction A Study of News Discourse

Mediated Discourse as Social Interaction: A Study of News Discourse

1st Edition

By Ron Scollon
April 09, 1998

Mediated Discourse as Social Interaction makes an explicit link between media studies and social interactionalist discursive research where previously the two fields of study have been treated as separate disciplines. This text presents an integrated theory illustrated by ample concrete examples, ...

The Construction of Professional Discourse

The Construction of Professional Discourse

1st Edition

By B.L. Gunnarsson, Per Linell, Bengt Nordberg
April 09, 1997

Internationally, there is increasing research and interest in the processes of the production and reception of texts for specific purposes and in the historical development of genres and registers within Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP), psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, anthropology and ...

Achieving Understanding Discourse in Intercultural Encounters

Achieving Understanding: Discourse in Intercultural Encounters

1st Edition

By Katharina Bremer, Margaret Simnot, Celia Roberts, M.-T. (Department Of Linguistics, University Rene Descartes, Paris V, France) Vasseur, Margaret (Department Of Arts, Law And Social Sciences, Islington College) Simonot
January 19, 1996

This is a detailed study of understanding in a second language, related to the actual lives of minority workers. The focus is on everyday interactions between these workers and the bureaucrats of the society in which they are now resident. It provides an important contribution to the debate about ...

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