Alan Partington – författare

This bestselling introductory textbook examines the relationship between politicians, the press and the public through the language they employ. Now fully revised with new material on delegitimisation, ‘fake news’, disinformation, (self-)censorship, ‘conspiracy theories’ and ‘Zombie’ narratives, key topics include:

• Evaluation, the ‘engine’ of persuasion.

• ‘Spin’, ‘spin control’ and ‘image’ politics.

• Models of persuasion, including authority, contrast, problem-solution, association, ‘garden path.’

• Pseudo-logical and ‘post-truth’ arguments.

• Humour, irony and satire.

• Metaphors: use, misuse and dangers.

• Election rhetoric.

Extracts from speeches, soundbites, newspapers and blogs, social media, interviews, press conferences, election slogans and satires are used to provide the reader with the tools to discover the beliefs, character and hidden strategies of the would-be persuader, as well as the counter-strategies of their targets. This book demonstrates how the study of language use can help us appreciate, exploit and protect ourselves from the art of persuasion.

With a wide variety of practical examples, on both recent issues and historically significant ones, every topic is complemented with guiding tasks, queries and exercises, with keys and commentaries at the end of each unit. This highly original textbook is ideal for all introductory courses on language and politics, media language, rhetoric and persuasion, discourse studies and related areas.

This bestselling introductory textbook examines the relationship between politicians, the press and the public through the language they employ. Now fully revised with new material on delegitimisation, ‘fake news’, disinformation, (self-)censorship, ‘conspiracy theories’ and ‘Zombie’ narratives, key topics include:

• Evaluation, the ‘engine’ of persuasion.

• ‘Spin’, ‘spin control’ and ‘image’ politics.

• Models of persuasion, including authority, contrast, problem-solution, association, ‘garden path.’

• Pseudo-logical and ‘post-truth’ arguments.

• Humour, irony and satire.

• Metaphors: use, misuse and dangers.

• Election rhetoric.

Extracts from speeches, soundbites, newspapers and blogs, social media, interviews, press conferences, election slogans and satires are used to provide the reader with the tools to discover the beliefs, character and hidden strategies of the would-be persuader, as well as the counter-strategies of their targets. This book demonstrates how the study of language use can help us appreciate, exploit and protect ourselves from the art of persuasion.

With a wide variety of practical examples, on both recent issues and historically significant ones, every topic is complemented with guiding tasks, queries and exercises, with keys and commentaries at the end of each unit. This highly original textbook is ideal for all introductory courses on language and politics, media language, rhetoric and persuasion, discourse studies and related areas.

The Linguistics of Laughter examines what speakers try to achieve by producing ‘laughter-talk’ (the talk preceding and eliciting an episode of laughter) and, by using abundant examples from language corpora, what hearers are signalling when they produce laughter.

In particular, Alan Partington focuses on the tactical use of laughter-talk to achieve specific rhetorical, and strategic, ends: for example, to construct an identity, to make an argumentative point, to threaten someone else’s face or save one''s own. Although laughter and humour are by no means always related, the book also considers the implications these corpus-based observations may have about humour theory in general.

As one of the first works to have recourse to such a sizeable databank of examples of laughter in spontaneous running talk, this impressive volume is an essential point of reference and an inspiration for scholars with an interest in corpus linguistics, discourse, humour, wordplay, irony and laughter-talk as a social phenomenon.

The Linguistics of Laughter examines what speakers try to achieve by producing ‘laughter-talk’ (the talk preceding and eliciting an episode of laughter) and, by using abundant examples from language corpora, what hearers are signalling when they produce laughter.

In particular, Alan Partington focuses on the tactical use of laughter-talk to achieve specific rhetorical, and strategic, ends: for example, to construct an identity, to make an argumentative point, to threaten someone else’s face or save one''s own. Although laughter and humour are by no means always related, the book also considers the implications these corpus-based observations may have about humour theory in general.

As one of the first works to have recourse to such a sizeable databank of examples of laughter in spontaneous running talk, this impressive volume is an essential point of reference and an inspiration for scholars with an interest in corpus linguistics, discourse, humour, wordplay, irony and laughter-talk as a social phenomenon.