DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

Talking in Clichés

The Use of Stock Phrases in Discourse and Communication

Derek Bousfield author Stella Bullo author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:3rd Nov '22

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

This hardback is available in another edition too:

Talking in Clichés cover

A spirited and engaging linguistic and social re-imagination of the role and nature of clichés in communication and interaction.

Fusing cutting-edge approaches of systemic-functional linguistics and discourse approaches with Interactional and Applied Pragmatics, this book explores the nature and role of clichés, reimagining this often-disparaged form of language as a means to efficient, effective communication and interaction.For decades, social perspectives, and even academic studies of language, have considered clichés as a hackneyed, tired, lazy, unthinking and uninspiring form of communication. Authored by two established scholars in the fields of Systemic-Functional Linguistics and Discourse Studies and Pragmatics, this cutting-edge book comprehensively explores the perception and use of clichés in language from these complementary perspectives. It draws data from a variety of both written and spoken sources, to re-interrogate and re-imagine the nature, role and usage of clichés, identifying the innovative and creative ways in which the concepts are utilised in communication, interaction, and in self-presentation. Observing a rich, complex layering of usage, the authors deconstruct the many and varied ways in which clichés operate and are interdependently constructed; from the role they play in discourse in general, to their functions as argumentative strategies, as constructs of social cognition, as politeness strategies, and finally as markers of identity.

'… this book is essential reading for graduate students and faculty in the disciplines of communication and rhetoric. Its ideas can be used to stimulate critical thinking in basic undergraduate communication or language arts courses. … Highly recommended' M. M. Stoltz, Choice

ISBN: 9781108471633

Dimensions: 235mm x 159mm x 17mm

Weight: 450g

275 pages