Sofia Rüdiger

Sven Leuckert

Tobias Bernaisch

Under the umbrella of evolving Englishes, this edited volume marries studies into the history of the English language with research traditionally rooted in the World Englishes paradigm. Insights into patterns of regional variation are offered with regard to linguistic features that have hitherto primarily been investigated in a small set of first-language varieties, but descriptions of varieties in the Kachruvian Outer Circle are also enhanced through noteworthy historical perspectives. Methodologically, each contribution works on strictly empirical grounds, regularly producing insights based on only recently compiled corpora of first- and/or second-language varieties of English. This approach brings to the fore novel functional and structural features of understudied varieties, such as the Englishes in Namibia and Sint Maarten, but also of varieties with more established research traditions in Asia and of functional varieties of English. In order to unveil said varietal features, novel analytical approaches, including the study of cultural scripts or refinements of tree-based modelling techniques, are embraced. In the light of said conceptual and methodological contributions, this edited volume is an attractive read for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, and academics in the fields of World Englishes, historical linguistics, corpus linguistics, and sociolinguistics. It will also be of interest to researchers in related disciplines, including cultural studies.

Varieties through Space and Time

Evolving Englishes

Daria Dayter

From Twitter to Reddit, Facebook, and WhatsApp – social media is a part of modern everyday life. Studying the language used on social media platforms presents great opportunities as well as challenges to corpus linguists. The contributions in Corpus Approaches to Social Media address technical, ethical, and methodological issues by showcasing in-depth social media studies as conducted by corpus scholars. The chapters are based on a variety of social media platforms and include corpus perspectives on the language of online communities, linguistic variation in short media texts, and the role of images in computer-mediated communication. A particularly strong point of the collection are the detailed accounts of the methodological aspects of working with social media corpora. The volume features research applying traditional corpus linguistic methods to social media data as well as novel and innovative research methods for the analysis of multimodal material and atypical corpus texts.

Corpus Approaches to Social Media

This book adopts a corpus-based discourse analysis approach to the study of the communicative practices of pick-up artists, offering a systematic exploration of distinct language use in an online community that uses speed-seduction practices for short-term dating and sex. Drawing on a multi-million-word corpus comprising data from online forums, social media, informational websites, and YouTube videos, the volume explores the verbal practices and narrative framing techniques that pick-up artists (PUAs) draw upon in their interactions with women and the terminology-heavy language used in teaching pick-up to foster perceptions of scientific validity. The book also unpacks videos and reports of live interactions to study naturally occurring PUA discourse from different perspectives but also to more closely examine conceptual metaphors of competition and violence and critically reflect on the ethical considerations of working with such communities. This book will appeal to students and scholars in such disciplines as discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, computer-mediated communication, and language and media, as well as those interested in the study of language use online.

Online Discourses of the Seduction Industry

The Language of Pick-Up Artists

Susanne Mühleisen

All humans eat and all humans speak – activities which in social life often, but not always, co-occur: We talk while eating and drinking with others, but food is also a prominent literal and metaphorical discursive topic which contributes to establishing communities and identities. This omnipresence of eating and drinking in our daily lives has led to a public fascination with foodways. The contributions in this edited collection investigate the connection between language and food from a variety of perspectives. As food discourses operate on local, global, and mediated levels, they are intertwined with notions of identity and culture and thus shed light on intimate understandings of ourselves as human beings. Talking about Food – The Social and the Global in Eating Communities provides up-to-date and thought-provoking contributions to the linguistics of food. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in food-related subjects.

Sofia Rüdiger

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