{"id":901,"date":"2010-10-02T10:00:08","date_gmt":"2010-10-02T08:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=901"},"modified":"2010-07-21T10:20:33","modified_gmt":"2010-07-21T08:20:33","slug":"studying-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=901","title":{"rendered":"Studying language"},"content":{"rendered":"
Studying language: <\/strong>English in action. By Urszula Clark<\/strong>. (Perspectives on the English language.) New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007. Pp. 224. ISBN 9781403922083<\/a>. $29.<\/div>\n

Reviewed by Sara McElmurry<\/strong>, Northeastern Illinois University<\/em><\/p>\n

The second in a series of three books geared toward undergraduates, Urszula Clark\u2019s Studying language: English in action<\/em> offers a practical, student-friendly guide to studying language across the disciplines of language variation, pragmatics, stylistics, and critical discourse analysis. Each of the book\u2019s four chapters focuses on one discipline and includes a discussion of the theories, issues, and subfields relevant to current research, along with numerous examples taken from real language data and contemporary studies. Chapters conclude with a how-to guide for student-led research, which includes tips on topic selection, data collection, and data analysis, along with suggestions for sample projects and lists for further reading. Companion books in the series include Discovering language: The structure of Modern English <\/em>by <\/em>Leslie Jeffries (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) and Thinking about language: Theories of English<\/em> by Siobhan Chapman (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).<\/p>\n

The first two chapters focus on the analysis of spoken language. C opens with a discussion of \u2018Variation and change in English\u2019 in Ch. 1 (3\u201349), which draws on the Ebonics debate in the United States to illustrate the social significance of this field. C includes a historical overview of the standardization of English in England and in the United States, along with an outline of research in the areas of linguistic variation, social variation, and social networks.<\/p>\n

Ch. 2, \u2018Pragmatics and discourse\u2019 (50\u201393), focuses on research related to the ethnography of communication, speech act theory, and the cooperative principle. C provides a comprehensive overview of the theories and the debates within the areas of discourse (i.e. exchange structure) and conversation analysis and concludes with a discussion of interactional sociolinguistics. The student research section in this chapter includes a useful guide to the conventions of transcription.<\/p>\n

Moving to the analysis of written work, Ch. 3, \u2018Stylistics\u2019 (94\u2013135), describes the field by way of the formal, cognitive, and sociocultural analysis of texts. C introduces grammar-focused (e.g. alliteration, assonance, rhyme, repletion) and style-focused (e.g. cohesion, deixis, simile, metaphor) approaches to analysis. Additionally, she examines the study of narratives, drama, and the representation of speech and thought.<\/p>\n

Ch. 4, \u2018Critical discourse analysis\u2019 (137\u201368), discusses the element of power inherent in both spoken and written discourse. Drawing on a discussion of Marxist and neo-Marxist thought, this chapter introduces semiotics and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as well as the notion of language as discourse. C describes transitivity- and modality-focused analyses of media texts before introducing the analysis of textual, discourse, and sociocultural practices inherent in critical discourse analysis.<\/p>\n

Overall, C provides a clear and comprehensive overview of language-related research disciplines. This book will be an excellent resource for undergraduate students of linguistics and related fields.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Studying language: English in action. By Urszula Clark. (Perspectives on the English language.) New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007. Pp. 224. ISBN 9781403922083. $29. Reviewed by Sara McElmurry, Northeastern Illinois University The second in a series of three books geared toward undergraduates, Urszula Clark\u2019s Studying language: English in action offers a practical, student-friendly guide to studying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":902,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/901\/revisions\/902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}