Alan Partington

The Linguistics of Laughter examines what speakers try to achieve by producing ‘laughter-talk’ (the talk preceding and eliciting an episode of laughter) and, by using abundant examples from language corpora, what hearers are signalling when they produce laughter. In particular, Alan Partington focuses on the tactical use of laughter-talk to achieve specific rhetorical, and strategic, ends: for example, to construct an identity, to make an argumentative point, to threaten someone else’s face or save one's own. Although laughter and humour are by no means always related, the book also considers the implications these corpus-based observations may have about humour theory in general. As one of the first works to have recourse to such a sizeable databank of examples of laughter in spontaneous running talk, this impressive volume is an essential point of reference and an inspiration for scholars with an interest in corpus linguistics, discourse, humour, wordplay, irony and laughter-talk as a social phenomenon.

A Corpus-Assisted Study of Laughter-Talk

The Linguistics of Laughter

This book examines the relationship between the White House, in the person of its press secretary, and the press corps through a linguistic analysis of the language used by both sides. A corpus was compiled of around fifty press briefings from the late Clinton years. A wide range of topics are discussed from the Kosovo crisis to the Clinton-Lewinsky affair. This work is highly original in demonstrating how concordance technology and the detailed linguistic evidence available in corpora can be used to study discourse features of text and the communicative strategies of speakers. It will be of vital interest to all linguists interested in corpus-based linguistics and pragmatics, as well as sociolinguists and students and scholars of communications, politics and the media.

The Spin-Doctor and the Wolf-Pack at the White House

The Linguistics of Political Argument

Charlotte Taylor

Unit 8: Questions and responses -- 8.1 Institutional discourse -- 8.2 From deference to hostility -- 8.3 Difficult questions, difficult answers -- 8.3.1 Assertions and presuppositions -- 8.4 Question structure -- 8.4.1 Repetition and interruption -- 8.5 Taking responsibility (or not): attribution and neutralism in questions -- 8.6 Primary and secondary sources -- 8.7 Fighting back -- 8.8 Who is talking? One above you or one of you? -- Review exercise -- Further reading -- Keys and commentaries -- Review key -- Unit 9: Humour, irony and satire in politics -- 9.1 Politics and humour -- 9.1.1 Humour and subversion -- 9.1.2 Self-deprecating humour and affective face -- 9.2 Irony and sarcasm -- 9.2.1 Irony -- 9.2.2 Sarcasm -- 9.3 Definitions of satire -- 9.3.1 Satire's long history -- 9.4 Animal Farm (George Orwell, 1945) -- 9.5 Modern satires -- Further reading -- Other resources -- Keys and commentaries -- Unit 10: The language of election and referendum campaigns -- 10.1 The US presidential election campaign of 2016: the most divisive ever? -- 10.1.1 Campaigning on social media -- 10.1.2 Campaign metonyms -- 10.1.3 Gendered evaluation -- 10.2 Referendums -- 10.2.1 The 2014 Scottish Referendum: background -- 10.2.2 The European Union Referendum: background -- 10.2.3 The wording of the question matters -- 10.2.4 The referendum campaigns: Scotland -- 10.2.5 Metaphors of the UK Union -- 10.2.6 The referendum campaigns: on the European Union -- Further reading -- Keys and commentaries -- Conclusion -- Glossary -- References -- Index

An Introduction

The Language of Persuasion in Politics

Patterns and Meanings consists of case studies which make use of corpora and concordance technology. Each case study elaborates a problem area, makes reference to both the descriptive and applied literature thus far, and then suggests ways of exploiting corpus data to shed light on the problem. Language phenomena investigated include word sense, phraseology and syntax, metaphor and creative use, text reference, idiom, and translation. Emphasis is given to information that usually cannot be found in dictionaries, grammars, language textbooks or other resources, but which the study of corpus data makes available. This work is particularly important not only for its language description insights, but also for pedagogical application. Further useful suggestions are included on setting up a medium-sized corpus on a personal computer.

Using Corpora for English Language Research and Teaching

Patterns and Meanings

John Morley

Louann Haarman

Corpus linguistics has made impressive strides in the fields of lexicography and grammatical description, but has had relatively little to say as yet in describing features of discourse. This volume, then, examines how it is possible to use concordance technology and the detailed linguistic evidence available in corpora to enhance the study of, among other things, how speakers/writers organise their discourse, how they express evaluation of their topics and the rhetorical strategies they employ to persuade an audience. Particular attention is paid to interrogating specialized corpora and to devising techniques to discover what is going on between speakers and between authors and readers in particular varieties of the language. These studies reveal the value of integrating corpus techniques with other, non-automatic, methods of research into the linguistic record and of combining quantitative and qualitative approaches. In general, they show how it is possible to use corpora to analyse discourse not only as product but also as process.

Corpora and Discourse

This accessible introductory textbook looks at the modern relationship between politicians, the press and the public through the language they employ, with extensive coverage of key topics including: ‘spin’, ‘spin control’ and ‘image’ politics models of persuasion: authority, contrast, association pseudo-logical and ‘post-truth’ arguments political interviewing: difficult questions, difficult answers metaphors and metonymy rhetorical figures humour, irony and satire Extracts from speeches, soundbites, newspapers and blogs, interviews, press conferences, election slogans, social media and satires are used to provide the reader with the tools to discover the beliefs, character and hidden strategies of the would-be persuader, as well as the counter-strategies of their targets. This book demonstrates how the study of language use can help us appreciate, exploit and protect ourselves from the art of persuasion. With a wide variety of practical examples on both recent issues and historically significant ones, every topic is complemented with guiding tasks, queries and exercises with keys and commentaries at the end of each unit. This is the ideal textbook for all introductory courses on language and politics, media language, rhetoric and persuasion, discourse studies and related areas.

Alan Partington

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