The proposed volume reflects on the Coronavirus pandemic as a still evolving phenomenon and captures critically its socially constructed dimension. The papers by well-established international contributors deal with a variety of themes that range from the different discourses of the first and second lockdown; the comparative responses to Covid in different parts of the world, in light of the relationship between language and culture; and the reflection of who the actors are, who talk and are talked about, in relation to the pandemic. This last theme, in particular, offers a wide variety of responses, from politicians’ and health experts’ communiqués to the voices of marginal individuals and groups like the refugees. The overall questions the papers as a whole try to answer is whether the discourses of and around Covid are equalizing or inciting inequality, whether they perpetuate existing structures of dominance and exclusion and if and how they contributed to language change. The volume offers an opportunity to both discourse analysts and sociolinguists to cross paths and work together. The variety of analytic approaches adopted in both linguistic fields, from corpus-assisted and computational approaches, to survey and interview-based studies, guarantees a ground-breaking interdisciplinary volume, with contributions designed to include linguistic analysis at all levels including the plane of grammatical description, lexis, phonology and discourse analysis.

This book addresses the problems and challenges of studying the discourse of "danger" cross-linguistically and cross-culturally, and proposes the cultural pragmatics of danger as a new field of inquiry. Detailed case studies of several linguacultures include Arabic, Chinese, Danish, English, German, Japanese and Spanish. Focusing on global and local contexts surrounding “living in dangerous times”, this book showcases how the new model of cultural pragmatics can be used to illuminate cultural meanings in discourse. Unlike the universalist approaches to pragmatics, cultural pragmatics focuses on understanding the linguacultural logics of discourse, and in the case of “danger”, the multiple cultural logics around which the themes and domains of “danger” revolve. The approach makes use of natural semantic metalanguage (NSM) as its principal analytical tool, and concepts such as “cultural keywords” and “cultural scripts” figure prominently as bearers of culture-specific meanings. The book will be of interest to students of pragmatics and discourse studies, researchers in cultural and cognitive semantics, anthropological linguistics, global humanities, political rhetoric and environmental studies, as well as linguists working in applied areas, such as risk and disaster studies, crisis and emergency communication.

In this book, Christopher Hart provides a comprehensive description of an applied form of Cognitive Linguistics in Cognitive Critical Discourse Analysis (Cognitive CDA). Cognitive CDA applies frameworks in cognitive linguistics in analyses of political texts and talk to highlight the ideological qualities and legitimating functions of conceptualisations associated with dominant discourse practices. Across the ten lectures, various frameworks in cognitive linguistics are applied, including cognitive grammar, conceptual semantics, conceptual metaphor theory and discourse space theory. Texts and talk from a variety of contexts and genres are analysed. In the final two lectures, Cognitive CDA is extended to multimodal data in the form of images and gestures.

Urban linguistic landscapes reflect and create sociolinguistic, societal and urban dynamics. This book explores these relations scientifically and, focusing on the linguistic landscapes of selected cities in northern and southern Europe, sheds light on how urban areas with diverse profiles differ, and how linguistic landscapes change through tourism and migration, or in times of crisis. The book puts forward sophisticated and novel ways of approaching urban sociolinguistics and enhances understanding of the challenges and opportunities faced when studying sociolinguistic variation in these linguistic landscapes. This book is targeted especially at scholars in the field of urban sociolinguistics wishing to approach the subject through the lens of linguistic landscapes. It also raises interesting points to anyone involved in language planning and policy reflection, as well as those engaged in urban redevelopment planning. Last but not least, it offers theoretical and methodological guidance to students and researchers in a wider variety of disciplines.

This book contains the proceedings of The International Seminar on Language, Education, and Culture (ISoLEC) 2023, an annual conference hosted by the Faculty of Letters, Universitas Negeri Malang. With the theme, Inclusive, Sustainable, and Transformational Education in Arts and Literature, ISoLEC aims to address key issues such as inclusive education in language, arts, and culture, sustainable education in language, arts, and culture, post-pandemic teaching and learning practices, corpus-based language, teaching and research, language in media, gender and identity, pop contemporary and digital culture, culture and spirituality, multilingualism and translanguaging, visual and performing arts, oral tradition and local culture, and digital literacy and information science. This book is a collection of selected articles that were presented at the conference covering issues of arts, language, and cultures. This conference addressed a range of relevant topics including: · Inclusive Education in Language, Arts, & Culture · Sustainable Education in Language, Arts, & Culture · Post Pandemic Teaching and Learning Practices · Corpus-Based Language, Teaching and Research · Language in Media · Gender and Identity · Pop, Contemporary and Digital Culture · Culture and Spirituality · Multilingualism and Translanguaging · Visual and Performing Arts · Oral Tradition & Local Culture · Digital Literacy and Information Science This proceeding will be of interest to students, lecturers, teachers, and academics who are interested in developing their knowledge in the field of language, education, and culture. Specifically, this book will be an interesting read for those who want to reimagine the inclusive and sustainable education.

Cognitive Sociolinguistics draws on the rich theoretical framework of Cognitive Linguistics and focuses on the social factors that underlie the variability of meaning and conceptualization. In the last decade, the field has expanded in various way. The current volume takes stock of current and emerging advances in the field in short academic contributions. The studies collected in this book have a usage-based approach to language variation and change, drawing on the theoretical framework of Cognitive Linguistics and are sensitive to social variation, be it cross-linguistic or language-internal. Three types of contributions are collected in this book. First, it contains theoretical overview papers on the domains that have witnessed expansion in recent years. Second, it presents novel research ideas in proof-of-concept contributions, aimed at blue-sky research and out-of-the-box linguistic analyses. Third, it showcases recent empirical studies within the field. By combining these three types of contributions, the book provides an encompassing overview of novel developments in the field of Cognitive Sociolinguistics.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a host of critical reflections about discourse practises dealing with public health issues. Situating crisis communication at the centre of societal and political debates about responses to the pandemic, this volume analyses the discursive strategies used in a variety of settings. Exploring how crisis discourse has become a part of managing the public health crisis itself, this book focuses on the communicative tasks and challenges for both speakers and their public audiences in seven areas: - establishment of discursive and political authority - official governmental and expert communication to the public - public understanding of government communication - legitimation of public health management as a 'war' - judging and blaming a collective other - cross-national comparison and rivalry - empathy and encouragement Covering global discourses from Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North and South America, and New Zealand, chapters use corpus-based data to cast light on these issues from a variety of languages. With crisis discourse already the object of fierce national and international debates about the appropriateness of specific communicative styles, information management and 'verbal hygiene', Pandemic and Crisis Discourse offers an authoritative intervention from language experts.

This handbook offers a comprehensive overview of research into discourses of disinformation, misinformation, post-truth, alternative facts, hate speech, conspiracy theories, and "fake news". Divided into two sections, it provides a detailed look at the methodological challenges and approaches for studying disinformation, along with a wide range of case studies covering everything from climate change denial to COVID-19 conspiracies. The studies address how discourses of disinformation are constructed and developed, what rhetorical and persuasive strategies they employ, how disinformation can be discerned from real news, and what steps we might take in order to create a more trustworthy news environment. Authored by leading experts from around the world, and showcasing the most up-to-date methodological approaches to the topic, the volume makes a significant contribution to current linguistic research on politics, and is an essential guide to the discourses of disinformation for advanced students and researchers of English language studies, linguistics, and media and communication studies.

This volume provides the first comprehensive reference work in English on the French language in all its facets. It offers a wide-ranging approach to the rich, varied, and exciting research across multiple subfields, with seven broad thematic sections covering the structures of French; the history of French; axes of variation; French around the world; French in contact with other languages; second language acquisition; and French in literature, culture, arts, and the media. Each chapter presents the state of the art and directs readers to canonical studies and essential works, while also exploring cutting-edge research and outlining future directions. The Oxford Handbook of the French Language serves both as a reference work for people who are curious to know more about the French language and as a starting point for those carrying out new research on the language and its many varieties. It will appeal to undergraduate and graduate students as well as established scholars, whether they are specialists in French linguistics or researchers in a related field looking to learn more about the language. The diversity of frameworks, approaches, and scholars in the volume demonstrates above all the variety, vitality, and vibrancy of work on the French language today.

Spotlighting case studies of manipulation practices at the onset of the Covid-19 crisis in different countries and socio-political circumstances, the authors expose context-specific discourse and argumentation strategies of 'infodemics’ (misleading information and fake news), public policy mismanagement, deceptive online and offline communication tactics, and conspiracy narratives, which end up disrupting community social cohesion. In addition to targeting manipulation-driven dissent across discourse genres through corpus-based investigations, a major strength of this volume consists in debunking manipulation while foregrounding compelling acts of counter-manipulation. The volume’s breadth of topics, depth of analytical insights and range of methodological frameworks provide unique perspectives by capturing crisis-related manipulations across a worldwide political and cultural spectrum (Austria, Brazil, China, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States), with a focus on the scale and extent of multifaceted repercussions. Reaching beyond the boundaries of pragmatics and discourse analysis, this book should be a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners of rhetoric, argumentation, media studies, social and political sciences.