Applying English Grammar.: Corpus and Functional Approaches / Edition 1

by Caroline Coffin, Ann Hewings, Kieran O'Halloran

Overview

This edited collection is about the application of English grammar and specialises in 'functional' and'corpus' approaches, approaches which are increasingly recognised as providing significant insights into English language in action. It aims to stimulate interest and understanding of grammar as an applied tool not just for grammarians or language learners, but for all those interested in how language is organized to shape our view of events in the world.

As the chapters in this book show, functional and corpus approaches allow us to make observations that would not be amenable through more traditional forms of grammatical analysis. They also illustrate how researchers can fruitfully bring together corpus and functional approaches to reveal how grammar and lexis create and transmit values, identities and ideologies. Research in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) has a long tradition of drawing on functional grammar but has only relatively recently begun to draw on corpus linguistics. As such, the book is unusual in presenting work on CDA which draws on corpus linguistics. But not only that, it is also unique in presenting work in CDA which brings together the methodologies of corpus linguistics and functional grammar, demonstrating their combined potential for illuminating ideological perspectives, particularly in media texts.

Given this focus and given the increasing value of empirical data, the book will be of interest to those in a range of disciplines including the humanities and media and cultural studies.

Chapters comprise both newly commissioned and previously published works that illustrate the two methodological approaches to grammatical analysis and how they can be applied to deepen our understanding of language.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780340885147
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/25/2004
Series:	A Hodder Arnold Publication Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Caroline Coffin, Ann Hewings and Kieran O'Halloran are all lecturers in the Centre for Language and
Communications at the Open University, UK

Table of Contents

General Introduction
Section A Introducing functional and corpus approaches
Introduction
Chapter 1. Working with corpora: issues and insights (E Tognini-Bonelli)
Chapter 2 Grammar and Spoken English (R Carter)
Chapter 3 Corpus-based comparisons of registers (D. Biber and S Conrad)
Chapter 4 Grammatical Structure: what do we mean? (Jim R. Martin)
Chapter 5 Some grammatical problems in scientific English (M Halliday)
Section B Getting down to specifics with corpus and functional approaches
Introduction
Chapter 6 Impersonalising stance: a study of anticipatory "it" in student and published academic writing (A Hewings and M. Hewings)
Chapter 7 Researching the grammar of a "literary" text (H Hillier)
Chapter 8 Grammar in the construction of online discussion messages (A Hewings and C.Coffin)
Chapter 9 The development of language as a resource for learning (C Painter)
Chapter 10 Grammar in the construction of medical case histories (G Francis and A Kramer-Dahl)
Section C Critical text analysis with corpus and functional approaches
Introduction
Chapter 11 Nature and grammar (A Goatly)
Chapter 12 Computer Applications in critical discourse analysis (V Koller and G Mautner)
Chapter 13 Subjectivity, Evaluation and Point of View in Media Discourse (P White)
Chapter 14 Human and inhuman geography: a comparative analysis of two long texts and a corpus (M Stubbs)
Chapter 15 Checking Overinterpretation and Underinterpretation: Help from Corpora in Critical Linguistics (KA O'Halloran and C Coffin)

Editorial Reviews

This edited volume...brings together in a novel way two approaches ton English grammar, namely the systematic functional approach and the corpus linguistic one, both of them becoming increasingly relevant to the empirical description of language use and the study of how language transmits values, identities, and ideology....

...Highly readable and clearly organized into self-contained secions, it provides an up-to-date theoretical and methodological framework for the analysis of the English language as it is used today...
http://linguistlist.org/issues/15/15-2778.html

The thirteen-page glossary lists terms related to the analysis of language use and provides brief, clear definitions of key concepts. This is an excellent reference source for both students and academics.

Helen Basturkmen, TESOLANZ Journal

From the Publisher