Dennis Tay - Böcker

Approaches to Specialized Genres provides a timely update of the field of genre studies, with 14 cutting-edge contributions split into five sections using and integrating an exceptionally wide variety of methods and perspectives (such as ESP genre research, corpus linguistics, systemic functional linguistics, ethnographic and multimodal research) to analyse genres in written, spoken, visual and auditory modes across a multiplicity of pedagogic, professional and digital settings. It highlights and illustrates the growing trend of a multiperspective and inter-theoretic approach to genre studies and demonstrates how such methodological rigour can extend our knowledge of language, in general, and genres, in particular. It also examines a rich variety of underexplored genres such as the digital genre of synchronous videoconferencing, instructional slides, video ads, engineers’ training log book entries, the narrative story genres, fundraising letters and retraction notices. It demonstrates not only the prominent value of genre research, but wide applications of genre knowledge in various educational and professional domains. The book brings together experts spreading across the world, including countries in South-East Asia, Europe, America, West Africa and South America. Accordingly, it will appeal to readers of diversified socio-cultural backgrounds working in all the aforementioned inter-related fields of applied linguistics and communication studies.

Approaches to Specialized Genres provides a timely update of the field of genre studies, with 14 cutting-edge contributions split into five sections using and integrating an exceptionally wide variety of methods and perspectives (such as ESP genre research, corpus linguistics, systemic functional linguistics, ethnographic and multimodal research) to analyse genres in written, spoken, visual and auditory modes across a multiplicity of pedagogic, professional and digital settings. It highlights and illustrates the growing trend of a multiperspective and inter-theoretic approach to genre studies and demonstrates how such methodological rigour can extend our knowledge of language, in general, and genres, in particular. It also examines a rich variety of underexplored genres such as the digital genre of synchronous videoconferencing, instructional slides, video ads, engineers’ training log book entries, the narrative story genres, fundraising letters and retraction notices. It demonstrates not only the prominent value of genre research, but wide applications of genre knowledge in various educational and professional domains. The book brings together experts spreading across the world, including countries in South-East Asia, Europe, America, West Africa and South America. Accordingly, it will appeal to readers of diversified socio-cultural backgrounds working in all the aforementioned inter-related fields of applied linguistics and communication studies.

This volume serves as a comprehensive introduction to Time Series Analysis (TSA), used commonly in financial and engineering sciences, to demonstrate its potential to complement qualitative approaches in discourse analysis research. The book begins by discussing how time has previously been conceptualized in the literature, drawing on studies from variationist sociolinguistics, corpus linguistics, and Critical Discourse Analysis. The volume then segues into a discussion of how TSA is applied in other contexts in which observed values are expected to be dependent on earlier values, such as stock markets and sales figures, and introduces a range of discourse-specific contexts to show how the technique might be extended to analyze trends or shed further light on relevant themes in discourse over time. Each successive chapter features a different discourse context as a case study, from psychotherapy sessions, university lectures, and news articles, and looks at how studying different variables over time in each context – metaphors, involvement markers, and keywords, respectively – can contribute to a greater understanding of both present and future discourse activity in these settings. Taken together, this book highlights the value of TSA as a complementary approach to meaning-based analysis in discourse, making this ideal reading for graduate students and scholars in discourse analysis looking to employ quantitative methods in their research practice.

This concise volume, using examples of psychotherapy talk, showcases the potential applications of data analytics for advancing discourse research and other related disciplines.The book provides a brief primer on data analytics, defined as the science of analyzing raw data to reveal new insights and support decision making. Currently underutilized in discourse research, Tay draws on the case of psychotherapy talk, in which clients’ concerns are worked through via verbal interaction with therapists, to demonstrate how data analytics can address both practical and theoretical concerns. Each chapter follows a consistent structure, offering a streamlined walkthrough of a key technique, an example case study, and annotated Python code. The volume shows how techniques such as simulations, classification, clustering, and time series analysis can address such issues as incomplete data transcripts, therapist–client (a)synchrony, and client prognosis, offering inspiration for research, training, and practitioner self-reflection in psychotherapy and other discourse contexts.This volume is a valuable resource for discourse and linguistics researchers, particularly for those interested in complementary approaches to qualitative methods, as well as active practitioners.

This concise volume, using examples of psychotherapy talk, showcases the potential applications of data analytics for advancing discourse research and other related disciplines.The book provides a brief primer on data analytics, defined as the science of analyzing raw data to reveal new insights and support decision making. Currently underutilized in discourse research, Tay draws on the case of psychotherapy talk, in which clients’ concerns are worked through via verbal interaction with therapists, to demonstrate how data analytics can address both practical and theoretical concerns. Each chapter follows a consistent structure, offering a streamlined walkthrough of a key technique, an example case study, and annotated Python code. The volume shows how techniques such as simulations, classification, clustering, and time series analysis can address such issues as incomplete data transcripts, therapist–client (a)synchrony, and client prognosis, offering inspiration for research, training, and practitioner self-reflection in psychotherapy and other discourse contexts.This volume is a valuable resource for discourse and linguistics researchers, particularly for those interested in complementary approaches to qualitative methods, as well as active practitioners.

Tay explores the Performance-Interpretability Trade-off (PIT) as a critical tension in AI and machine learning, and shows its distinctive form in discourse analysis where predictive success and interpretive meaning are inseparable.Rather than treating PIT as a technical obstacle, this book reframes it as a site of conceptual negotiation and theoretical innovation. It introduces constructs such as strategic indeterminacy and PIT elasticity alongside analytic strategies like discourse fingerprinting, to show how discourse knowledge can actively reshape computational assumptions at every level of the analytic pipeline. Through sustained case studies, the book equips readers to engage machine learning algorithms as a partner in interpretation and methodological reflection.An essential resource for scholars and researchers in linguistics, discourse analysts, computational linguists, and digital humanities, offering a comprehensive roadmap for harnessing machine learning's transformative potential.

The 'real-world' commitment of cognitive linguistics is demonstrated by increasingly extensive collaboration between researchers and industry partners. Yet, there has been little critical reflection on the lessons learnt from these collaborative efforts. Beginning researchers may benefit from in-depth discussion of how various practical realities inform, constrain, or otherwise shape important methodological and/or analytic decisions. This Element reflects on long-term collaborative work between a metaphor researcher and psychotherapists, offering practical advice on navigating the latent realities of this type of research. The three foundational components of psychotherapy - the therapist, the client, and the interactional setting itself - are discussed in turn, covering issues like ethically engaging therapists in research design and data analysis, dealing with underexplored variabilities in client responses, and managing the inherent tension between spontaneity and control in an interactional setting like psychotherapy. Some thoughts on how the lessons are transferable to other research contexts are offered.

Approaches to Language, Culture and Cognition aims to bring cognitive linguistics and linguistic anthropology closer together, calling for further investigations of language and culture from cognitively-informed perspectives against the backdrop of the current trend of linguistic anthropology.

This volume serves as a comprehensive introduction to Time Series Analysis (TSA), used commonly in financial and engineering sciences, to demonstrate its potential to complement qualitative approaches in discourse analysis research. The book begins by discussing how time has previously been conceptualized in the literature, drawing on studies from variationist sociolinguistics, corpus linguistics, and Critical Discourse Analysis. The volume then segues into a discussion of how TSA is applied in other contexts in which observed values are expected to be dependent on earlier values, such as stock markets and sales figures, and introduces a range of discourse-specific contexts to show how the technique might be extended to analyze trends or shed further light on relevant themes in discourse over time. Each successive chapter features a different discourse context as a case study, from psychotherapy sessions, university lectures, and news articles, and looks at how studying different variables over time in each context – metaphors, involvement markers, and keywords, respectively – can contribute to a greater understanding of both present and future discourse activity in these settings. Taken together, this book highlights the value of TSA as a complementary approach to meaning-based analysis in discourse, making this ideal reading for graduate students and scholars in discourse analysis looking to employ quantitative methods in their research practice.

Contemporary data analytics involves extracting insights from data and translating them into action. With its turn towards empirical methods and convergent data sources, cognitive linguistics is a fertile context for data analytics. There are key differences between data analytics and statistical analysis as typically conceived. Though the former requires the latter, it emphasizes the role of domain-specific knowledge. Statistical analysis also tends to be associated with preconceived hypotheses and controlled data. Data analytics, on the other hand, can help explore unstructured datasets and inspire emergent questions. This volume addresses two key aspects in data analytics for cognitive linguistic work. Firstly, it elaborates the bottom-up guiding role of data analytics in the research trajectory, and how it helps to formulate and refine questions. Secondly, it shows how data analytics can suggest concrete courses of research-based action, which is crucial for cognitive linguistics to be truly applied. The papers in this volume impart various data analytic methods and report empirical studies across different areas of research and application. They aim to benefit new and experienced researchers alike.