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While acknowledging the importance of specific lexis in profiling discourse communities, studies on academic discourse have paid growing attention to general lexis and its disciplinary specificity. This is particularly true of recent approaches to phraseology in English for Academic Purposes (EAP), including both statistically significant clusters and grammar patterns and semantic sequences. The current paper explores the notion of semantic sequences through a case study of sequences involving relative what . Based on a corpus of academic journal articles in the field of history (2.5 million words), the analysis highlights co-occurrence of what with a range of signals referring to a shift in time perspectives or attribution, and points to the “re-defining” function of what , introducing a re-formulation of what has just been said or proposing an interpretation on the basis of the cotext. A tentative classification of the sequences is provided, building on previous studies on a local grammar of evaluation. The sequences are shown to highlight the argumentative voice of historians interacting with their sources and their discourse community, by showing awareness of different interpretations of people and events in history.

This paper aims to contribute to recent research on bilingualism and emotions from a discourse approach, analyzing extracts taken from a spontaneous conversation between two Spanish/Galician female bilinguals. Spanish is the base language of this interaction and the dominant language of the speakers, but the extracts selected correspond to sequences of gossip and complaints about third parties including switches into Galician. The analysis reveals that these Spanish/Galician bilingual uses contribute towards the structure of the conversational activity and to foreground different affective stances. Spanish is employed to signal indignation at the arrogant attitude of the people talked about, while Galician is selected in producing a derogatory discourse on their social status or moral condition which displays contempt for them. While previous research on code-switching and emotions has linked the affective functions with the dominant language(s), this paper highlights the relevance of both the dominant language and the less dominant language in displaying affective stances. It is proposed that the specific emotive role of Galician in the contextualization of contempt could be related to the external symbolism of this language and its traditional lack of prestige.

This paper examines perhaps the earliest developed analysis of talk interactionin the Western world, the Ancient Egyptian Instructions of Ptahhotep. It fills a gap in the early history of social interaction analysis, is a socially-related account of talk, and it also had some influence on the rise of European talk-in-interaction instructions. To do justice to the complexity and wide coverage of the Instructions , this empirical study uses Critical Discourse Analysis to examine the text’s social and contextual rhetoric, and Speech Act Analysis. Conversation Analysis (CA) is also used for a qualitative account of its instructions, broadening CA in line with recent scholarly work. The study hopes to answer two questions: socio-epistemically, what did Ptahhotep know about the analysis of naturally-occurring interactions? And socio-deontically, how did he incorporate this into his text, and make his instructions actionable?

This study uses conversation analysis to describe the sequential and functional relationship between text and speech turns in an English conversational lesson conducted in multimodal synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) involving text and speech modes. Focusing on repair sequences, I examine the relative timing of turns in each mode, the interactional practices that participants employed to handle timing discrepancy, and how both modes were utilized to maintain the pedagogical and interpersonal purposes of the encounter. The analysis shows that synchronous timing between text and speech turns was rare. In time lags between text and speech turns, if the repair was a self-initiated other-repair initiated by the tutee, speech turns did not seem to orient to the time lag. In other types of repair, the tutor utilized a range of practices to accommodate for the time lags, such as extreme slow speech tempo, pivot turns, and topic pursuits. The tutor also used the silent and visual features of text to insert and project an upcoming teaching episode in the midst of unfolding topical talk. The findings suggest that multimodal SCMC is a holistic process in which the affordances of modes can be employed dynamically and integratively to achieve social actions.

This article develops a new methodological tool, called scales of action , which allows the empirical investigation of ubiquitous actions such as driving on the one hand, and the highly complex relationships between (for example) drives and other actions in everyday life on the other hand. Through empirical analysis of ethnographic data of drives performed by a German artist and an American IT specialist, the article illustrates how talk and driving are embedded differently in different cultural contexts. Examining the actions of the two drivers before, during, and after a drive further demonstrates that chronologically performed actions are not necessarily sequential in nature. Using a mediated discourse theoretical approach and building upon multimodal (inter)action analysis, the article provides analysts with a tool that captures the inherent complexities of everyday actions. Through the notion of scales of action and their composition, this article sheds new light upon the complexity and cultural differences of drives and car talk in middle class Germany and North America.

The purpose of this article is to provide insights into the processes of public discourse and how information can be reformulated for public consumption. The article draws on data from readability research of public information documents conducted in Australia. Public information documents need to be understood by members of the public and a lexicogrammatical analysis, centred on a Theme and Rheme analysis, provides a platform through which readability, or a text’s coherence, can be further examined. The readability data combined with text analyses demonstrate readers’ preferences for clearer Theme structures and coherent development of information within the Rheme. The analysis highlights the functional differences between a text-section judged as difficult-to-read and a text-section preferred by the reader-participants, providing insights into the requirements for achieving clearer public discourse.