About the Book
Language and Context breaks new ground in our understanding of the relationship between register, genre and context. Leckie-Tarry argues convincingly and engagingly for a functional theory of language which specifies register in terms of contextual and linguistic features, and which suggests a discursive relationship between the two. Moving beyond the limits of much of today's theory, this accessible volume develops a theoretical understanding of the relationship between text, context, langage function and linguistic form. Helen Leckie-Tarry, a specialist in the area of 'register and applied linguistics', died in 1991, aged 49. Although she had finished a large part of this work, her notes and draft chapters have been extensively edited by Professor David Birch. David Birch is currently Professor of Communication and media Studies at Central Queensland University, Australia, and previously taught at Murdoch University, Western Australia, and the National University of Singapore.
Table of Contents:
Register and genre, context, register, genre, functional theory, applied linguisitics, social semiotics, register or genre?, cultural theory; context, levels of context, context of culture, context of situation, function, meaning; field tenor and mode, modelling context, field, tenor, mode, medium; language medium, metafunctions, orality and literacy, orders of meaning, proficiency, cline of register, power, literariness, communication strategies, linguistic realization; linguistic realization, function and form, development processes, levels of context, iconicity, abstraction - hierarchization, generlaization - lexicalization, realities and grammars, metaphor; hierarchicization, oral and literate cultures, syntachization, casuality, hierarchized structures, clauses, complexity, intricacy; lexicalization, generalization, the lexicon, process, tense, difference, nominality, modification, technicalization, lexical selection, coreness, non-finite structures, cline of lexicalization, decontextualization; theme and information structure, implicitness/explicitness, cohesion, frames, theme-rheme, prominence, topic choice, global topics, thematic progression, rhetorical structure, given-new, topic availability, presuppositionality.
