Discourse Across Languages and Cultures

This volume brings together for the first time research by linguists working in cross-linguistic discourse analysis and by second language researchers working in the contrastive rhetoric tradition. The collection of articles by prominent authors and younger scholars encompasses a variety of research approaches and treats numerous naturally-occurring spoken and written genres, including conversations, narratives, academic expository writing, journalism, advertising, and professional promotional texts. Languages examined include English, Spanish, French, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Hebrew, Urdu, Dutch, Turkish and Serbo-Croatian. Taken individually and collectively, the articles in this collection draw important conclusions concerning the roles of cognition, multilingualism, communities of practice, and linguistic typology in shaping discourse within and across cultures.

Manuela Wagner, University of Connecticut, on Linguist List Vol. 16.1786, 2005:
Moder and Martinovic-Zic's book is a refreshing and crucial contribution to the study of discourse. First, the different studies reported in this book provide a variety of topics within the bigger umbrella of discourse across cultures, bringing together the work of a number of influential scholars. The findings touch upon important questions that have not been dealt with so far and open up the readers' eyes to vital issues. These questions are crucial, not only within the fields of studies explored in this book, but also for fields such as education or language policy, just to name two examples. By investigating the influence of knowledge of a foreign language on the knowledge and performance in our first language we get closer to answering questions about cognition, as well as about the importance of studying foreign languages. Findings concerning different pragmatic skills and how they are influenced by linguistic and pragmatic aspects in one's first language can be employed by classroom practitioners. A further refreshing aspect is the variety of different contexts in which these studies are set. Inevitably, the reader is presented with diverse cultural and educational settings, finding out more about not only what role the factors of the language play with regard to linguistic features, but also considering the role of interaction with the cultural, political, sociological and historical background in the various settings. This in itself is a course in cultural sensitivity. Moreover, the studies make use of a plethora of methodologies, thereby providing examples for how to study the phenomena described in this book with inter- and multidisciplinary approaches. The chapters are organized in a way that the reader benefits from previous chapters when reading about similar methodology or findings that can be compared and built upon. Therefore, I believe that apart from being an excellent addition to the specialists' library in the various fields involved, this book would also be a great tool for courses dealing with discourse. While each chapter provides an introduction to the methodology applied in different areas of discourse studies, the topics are related enough that the students will be able to find out about the interconnectedness of the topics, while at the same time gaining a broader view of discourse across languages and cultures. In conclusion, the present book is a rich scholarly and educational source which is also very enjoyable to read.