Language and Power in Blogs
Interaction, disagreements and agreements
| University of Zurich
Language and Power in Blogs systematically analyses the discursive practices of bloggers and their readers in eight English-language personal/diary blogs. The main focus is thereby placed on ties between these practices and power. The book demonstrates that the exercise of power in this mode can be studied via the analysis of conversational control (turn-taking, speakership and topic control), coupled with research on agreements and disagreements. In this vein, it reveals that control of the floor is strongly tied not solely to rates of participation, but more strikingly to the types of contributions interlocutors make. With its detailed linguistic analyses and comprehensive theoretical and methodological treatment of language use and power, the book is interesting for researchers and students working within the domains of pragmatics, discourse analysis, text linguistics and corpus linguistics, in both offline and online settings.
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 237] 2013. xvi, 275 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
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Acknowledgments | pp. xi–xii
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List of tables and figures | pp. xiii–xvi
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Chapter 1. Introducing language use and power in personal/diary blogs | pp. 1–8
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Chapter 2. Blogging as a social practice | pp. 9–34
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Chapter 3. Power in theory | pp. 35–54
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Chapter 4. Disagreements and agreements in theory | pp. 55–78
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Chapter 5. The blog corpus and its analysis | pp. 79–96
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Chapter 6. Power in practice I: Interactional patterns | pp. 97–136
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Chapter 7. Power in practice II: Topic control | pp. 137–160
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Chapter 8. Disagreements and agreements in practice I: Characterising the moves | pp. 161–194
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Chapter 9. Disagreements and agreements in practice II: Patterns of interaction, responsiveness and links to power | pp. 195–222
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Chapter 10. Concluding remarks | pp. 223–230
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References | pp. 231–242
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Appendix I. Discourse moves with definitions, examples and explanations (presented in groups) | pp. 243–254
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Appendix II. Relational work with definitions, examples and explanations (presented in alphabetical order) | pp. 255–264
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Appendix III. The qualitative questionnaire | pp. 265–268
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Author index | pp. 269–270
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Subject index | pp. 271–275
“In this innovative study, Bolander draws on interactional and discourse analysis to examine the negotiation of power relations in the discourse of bloggers and their readers. With its solid theoretical grounding, robust methodology and rich findings, this book is likely to become a standard reference in this neglected area of computer-mediated discourse analysis.”
Jannis Androutsopoulos, University of Hamburg
“This volume constitutes an important contribution to the emerging field of research on relational work in computer-mediated discourse and interaction, and represents an excellent original study of such issues in the context of blogging. As computer-mediated communications have become an increasingly important part of our everyday lives, it is clear that any theorisation of relational work and (im)politeness is incomplete without an account of such phenomena in computer-mediated communications. The author has produced perceptive and empirically-grounded analyses of the ways in which power and (dis)agreements are achieved in blog posts and comments, thereby advancing our understanding of such key pragmatic phenomena in very important ways. This book is thus an essential read not only for anyone interested in the pragmatics of CMC, but indeed anyone interested in the pragmatics relationality more broadly.”
Michael Haugh, Griffith University, Brisbane
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Language and Power in Blogs presents innovative research on the interface of text linguistics, discourse analysis and computer-mediated communication and combines a qualitative with a quantitative approach in a mixed methodology research design. The text compels with its clear structure and friendly reader guidance as well as ample illustrations of the theoretical underpinnings and empirical findings of the study. Bolander’s results convincingly demonstrate that it is crucial to pay attention to the social as well as the medium factors that shape online interaction and to take the dynamic creation of interactional and relational patterns into account when addressing issues of power in social practice.”
Miriam A. Locher, University of Basel
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This list is based on CrossRef data as of 20 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
Subjects & Metadata
Linguistics
BIC Subject: CFG – Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis
BISAC Subject: LAN009000 – LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General