In Other Words: Variation in Reference and Narrative: 21 (Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics, Series Number 21) - Hardcover

Schiffrin, Deborah

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521481597 ISBN 13: 9780521481595

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2006

Synopsis

What we say always consists of prior words, structures and meanings that are combined in new ways and re-used in new contexts for new listeners. In this book, Deborah Schiffrin looks at two important tasks of language - presenting 'who' we are talking about (the referent) and 'what happened' to them (their actions and attributes) in a narrative - and explores how this presentation alters in relation to emergent forms and meanings. Drawing on examples from both face-to-face talk and public discourse, she analyses a variety of repairs, reformulations of referents, and retellings of narratives, ranging from word-level repairs within a single turn-at-talk, to life story narratives told years apart. Bringing together work from conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, cognitive semantics, pragmatics, and variation analysis, In Other Words will be invaluable for scholars wishing to understand the many different factors that underlie the shaping and re-shaping of discourse over time, place and person.

About this title

Book Description:

This book explores two important tasks of language - presenting 'who' we are talking about and 'what happened' in a narrative - and how this alters according to emergent forms and meanings. Using a range of examples, it shows how words, structures and meanings are re-used in new contexts for new listeners.

About the Author:

Deborah Schiffrin is Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0521481597
• ISBN 13: 9780521481595
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 392