Discourse in Context: Contemporary Applied Linguistics Volume 3

Reviews / Votes

There are to date few [works] that concentrate specifically on context from a discourse analytic perspective [as this book does] ... An ideal resource ... Given its wide-ranging and rich content, this volume will serve as an excellent reference for students, teachers, and researchers in discourse analysis and applied linguistics in general. * Applied Linguistics * Future researchers looking for starting points could consider the varied and complex range of methods used in this volume ... This book will interest researchers and the students they guide into further research topics. * Discourse Studies * A very welcome and thought-provoking read ... All chapters are well-written and introduce their approach to language in context in the clearest possible way. * The Linguist List * I strongly recommend this volume, as it offers its readers the opportunity to cross their disciplinary border and get insights provided by colleagues with a different expertise and working with different methodologies. Moreover, it provides a solid stepping-stone for further study to any scholar interested in the issue. * Iberica * John Flowerdew presents us with an update and upgrade of discourse studies, much needed when a discipline is exploding with new ideas and approaches. The perpetual renewal of what counts as adequate analysis is the task of any science; Flowerdew offers us the cream of the crop here. The papers in this welcome volume collected and edited by John Flowerdew show the complex configurations and the pervasive influence of many types of context in the production, structures and interpretation of many genres of text and talk as well as the urgent need for continued theoretical exploration of the nature of contexts and the context-discourse interface. Given the importance of 'Context' in discourse analysis this book's treatment of how the concept is treated in a wide range of different theories and methodologies makes it an excellent and in-depth introduction to discourse analysis as a whole.

Because our understanding of discourse analysis depends on how we conceptualize 'context', the diversity of perspectives on 'context' found in this volume significantly raises awareness of the diversity of 'discourse analysis'.

While there is no single theory of context that accounts for the breadth of the discourse settings covered in this volume - the press, the courtroom, schools, the European parliament and so on - analysis of how context is relevant in each of these settings leaves the reader in no doubt as to the theoretical importance of 'Context' in our understanding of the work language does in the social world.