Chapter 8 provides a select introduction to register, genre, and style. The multidimensional analysis of style reveals a gradual drift from “literate” to “oral” over time. Attention is given here to the news and religious registers. The news register has seen the rise of the newspaper, leading to the introduction of new publication types, such as television, radio, and internet news, and new genres, such as editorials, obituaries, or weather forecasts. The religious register has a long history and has been remarkably stable. Two religious genres, prayers and sermons, have changed little in respect to function, structure, and linguistic characteristics. The function of recipes remains constant (i.e., instructions on how to prepare or do something), thus accounting for the imperative as the defining linguistic form, but we find differences in the content of recipes (medicinal vs. culinary), in the audience of recipes (e.g., the professional vs. the amateur cook), in the structural elements found in recipes (e.g., separation of the ingredients and the procedural steps), and in characteristic linguistic features (e.g., the introduction of null objects and telegraphic style).

The chapter investigates the factors motivating the choice of mood in Early Latin indirect questions. Under what conditions would the speaker use the indicative rather than the subjunctive? subjunctive? Some factors have already been identified, such as exclamatory-style phrases, the degree of detachment of the indirect question, the head verb’s meaning and its mood. The present study submits that variation in mood can be motivated by (literary) register and the social identity of speaker and addressee. The question is addressed first by building a complete corpus of indirect questions in Early Latin drama, with each form tagged with the relevant markers (metrical context, status of speaker and addressee, etc.); from this corpus of data, instances in which indicative is most definitely retained as a rule are excluded, and instances are examined in which either mood was in principle allowable, with a view to identifying patterns. Attention is paid to style, metre, character type, and genre. This methodology enables a sociolinguistic approach to the question and considerations about the developments in usage over time.

Handbooks of Latin usually draw attention to the presence of Greek loanwords from the very earliest stages of the Latin language. Greek loans feature in texts of all types, in a wide range of different spheres: words for flora and fauna, food and drink, aspects of trade, law and administration. The last major study of the Greek loanwords in Latin (Biville ) concentrated on the ways in which Greek sounds were represented in Latin, but did not have so much to say about the place of Greek loanwords within the vocabulary of Latin as a whole. This chapter gives a survey of Greek loanwords in Republican Latin, in both literary and epigraphic documents, with several different research questions in mind. Is it possible to unearth different chronological strata of loanwords? Can learned and vulgar loans be separated in Republican Latin, and how well integrated were Greek loans into Latin? Do phonological and semantic aspects of the words reveal anything about the source of the loans? Why do some Greek loanwords make it into the higher registers of Roman poetry (and sometimes prose) and others not, and how do these conventions come about?

Handbooks of Latin usually draw attention to the presence of Greek loanwords from the very earliest stages of the Latin language. Greek loans feature in texts of all types, in a wide range of different spheres: words for flora and fauna, food and drink, aspects of trade, law and administration. The last major study of the Greek loanwords in Latin (Biville ) concentrated on the ways in which Greek sounds were represented in Latin, but did not have so much to say about the place of Greek loanwords within the vocabulary of Latin as a whole. This chapter gives a survey of Greek loanwords in republican Latin, in both literary and epigraphic documents, with several different research questions in mind. Is it possible to unearth different chronological strata of loanwords? Can learned and vulgar loans be separated in republican Latin, and how well integrated were Greek loans into Latin? Do phonological and semantic aspects of the words reveal anything about the source of the loans? Why do some Greek loanwords make it into the higher registers of Roman poetry (and sometimes prose) and others not, and how do these conventions come about?

Chapter 1 presents the purpose of the book – i.e. describing how a text-based description of three world languages can be developed. The Systemic Functional Linguistic theory informing these descpriptons is introduced, including modellng of context and discourse semantics,and the basic theoretical parameters of metafunciton, rank and stratification.The nature argumentation in relation to grammar description is outlined.

This chapter explores and develops the concept of typicality and atypicality both generally and specifically in terms of reference. Existing literature on reference established our core understanding of referring, forming the basis for how we view reference. However, evidence has largely been experimental, computational, philosophical, and/or based on small excerpts. This chapter then sets out the distinction we would like to make on the division between typical and atypical uses. We argue for a view of typicality as conventionalised language use, which can be said to fall within the norms of a given register. Atypicality, conversely includes instances of language which can be said to be infrequent and unconventionalised for a given register. The chapter focusses on existing models of reference which provide an excellent grounding in typical uses of reference through which we can explore the (in)stability of identifiability and view atypical reference as an exploitation of conventionalised norms.

Zimbabwe’s 1995 general election was conducted in the context of a ferocious debate on the country’s controversial constitution and a disastrous economic structural adjustment programme (ESAP). Zanu PF had already won a parliamentary majority well before votes were cast. It had the advantage of having thirty presidentially appointed MPs and fifty-five of its sitting MPs stood unopposed. The national voters’ register remained in a complete shambles. A weak and divided political opposition seemed to be a permanent feature in the country. Zanu PF neither accepted nor tolerated political opponents, believing it had entitlement to be in power forever. Zanu PF participation in the anti-colonial liberation war was a major justification for supressing political opposition parties. Zanu PF’s mindset was, by hook or crook, de jure or de facto bent on achieving a one-party state. The hallmarks of the 1995 elections were the controversial constitution, weak opposition, Zanu PF’s manipulation, and bending and breaking of election rules, including its lack of political will to develop a viable voters’ roll. The economic structural adjustment programme had already ruined peoples’ livelihoods by the mid-1990s. The source of violence emanated from Zanu PF’s non-acceptance and intolerance of competitive election contests, including within its own leadership selection processes.

Chapter 2 of Discourse Syntax (Concepts, Data, and Methods) further clarifies the need for studying patterns of syntactic use and variation in English with emphasis on the surrounding text (co-text), which is itself embedded in a specific discourse situation (context). It also differentiates between sentences and utterances and introduces the notion of “register” as a grouping of linguistic patterns arising from the discourse situation and distinguishes between a text-linguistic (focus on text) and a variationist perspective (focus on a syntactic variable) in studying syntactic variation, as well as methods of data collection, including guidance on working with corpora, corpus searches, data cleaning, and data interpretation, as well as research design in line with these two approaches.

Chapter 9 of Discourse Syntax (Grammar and Genre) deals with patterns of English grammar as tied to the situational settings of a register or the conventions of a genre. It notes that a feature of grammar, such as the passive voice in academic discourse, may either be pervasive in some as compared to other registers, or that it can be typical, like a hashtag in tweets. The chapter also refers to the modality of the discourse situation and distinguishes between conceptually oral and written language. For a written genre, it discusses the scientific abstract and the various grammatical forms of expressing agentivity that typically occur in it. It also examines the way in which scientific genres show a condensation of information through syntactic complexity, particularly within the noun phrase, and how to study that type of complexity based on a sample of attestations retrieved from an electronic corpus. The chapter also discusses digital genres and the use of hashtags in discourse on social media platforms as well as the “because X” construction as a characteristic case of linguistic innovation within that medium.

Chapter 17 highlights how translation studies’ interaction with genre analysis, register studies, critical language study, contrastive rhetoric and the study of languages for special/academic purposes relates to the translation of academic texts. Most investigations contrast English with languages such as French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, Slovene, Hungarian, Finnish and Danish, and the foci of analyses relate to a wide range of topics, such as translation strategies, style and register, terminology, and culture-specific discourse conventions. The chapter identifies the challenges that the field faces and the areas where further research is needed.

This book explores how English sentences are constructed. In this introduction, we explain our approach. We describe the current status of English as a global language, why it holds this status, and why it might not be the best choice. We characterize Standard English as a large dialect cluster, mentioning the British and American subvarieties, along with other dialects, while deploring dialect prejudice. Differences between spoken & written English, formal & informal style, and the grammarian’s purposes of describing & advising are addressed.

In the book, we introduce and define many technical terms for grammatical concepts, and here we justify some of our terminological decisions, noting that even familiar terms like noun and verb will be clearly defined, though often in ways new to the reader. We provide examples to show why.

Though many think language is about words, we focus on sentences and the discoverable constraints about how English sentences can and can’t be structured, constraints that every English speaker recognizes. The most interesting thing about grammar is that these constraints aren’t stipulated rules. They can be discovered through investigation.

In this concluding chapter we begin by reviewing our research questions, first by looking at differences between the Extreme, Fringe and Moderate texts, then by considering the aspects of language use that were frequently used to manipulate readers into accepting the ideology of violent jihad. Following these two sections we consider the implications of our findings for work aimed at creating and disseminating counter-discourses to extremism. We then reflect on the study itself in terms of the limitations and difficulties encountered, and consider how our work could be expanded in the future.

Eva Marie Håland focuses on the field of literary sociolinguistics as she approaches the testy and as yet unsolved problem for Arabic about the nature of language in literary works, raising the issue of complex discourse coherence relations when two (or more) distinct variants are used. The long-held taboo on encoding vernacular Arabic in writing has seen its hold gradually diminish over time, especially during the last half-century, with rapidly accelerating changes in authentic dialogue and first-person narrative. Håland examines the shifting formulas and standards for vernacular writing and orthography, including blending, codeswitching, and hierarchies of registers used for different purposes, such as parodic stylization.

This chapter argues for an alternative view of 'African youth languages' based on ethnographic and ecological approaches that link structural and discursive analyses of spontaneous communicative interactions with immediate situational and local social dynamics and then the broader sociocultural context of the speech community in which these practices occur. Using video recordings of naturally occurring conversations from twenty-two years of observation among male youth in a township in Johannesburg, South Africa, I demonstrate that so-called Tsotsitaal or tsotsitaals are interactive performative practices that constitute a performative register made up of a set of discursive strategies that draw on different linguistic resources in the quest for originality as part of male sociality during a particular life stage. I show that variation in choice of words and other semiotic features of this practice are best explained from a persona-constructionist perspective as part of male sociality where linguistic choices index attitudes, stances and identities in the service of social distinction. Innovations spread based on linguistic skill and status within male social networks. Multivalency accounts for the presence of some of the male youth lexicon in urban vernaculars. Implications for current approaches to the study of youth language in Africa are discussed.