This paper argues that the dominant modes of academic address, the conference paper, the journal article, and the monograph, reinforce problematic and exclusionary assumptions concerning what counts as legitimate research, whilst also restricting academic enquiry and impoverishing intellectual life. It makes its case by exploring in some detail…

The article deals with the analysis of the addressee's factor foregrounding in the limerick discourse. The study demonstrates that the limerick discourse is characterised by an addresser-writer's and an addressee-reader/listener's reciprocality via idiosyncratic protagonists portrayed by an addresser-writer. A limerick presents a laconic…

This paper shows how humour is deployed in Achebe's "A Man of the People" by analysing the make-up of the various instances of humour as well as their significance in attaining the desired effects. To Veatch (1998), humour contains two incongruous elements; one element is socially normal while the other is a violation of the…

The paper brings into focus how Syed Manzoorul Islam, in his three-decade-long literary career, has mastered a narrative style that sets him apart from many of his Bengali contemporaries. It demonstrates all the traits unique to his storytelling: blurring of boundaries between dream and reality, self-reflexivity, irony, and humor. The research…

"Second-language Discourse in the Digital World" illustrates a new, practice-driven approach to technology in second-language (L2) learning that begins with what L2 users do when they connect with others online. With its rich set of examples from a number of different languages and a variety of digital platforms, in and beyond the…

By drawing upon the dialogic theory of Bakhtin, I consider how register variation is represented in the children's books by the popular Greek writer Dr. Eugene Trivizas, with the aim to explore whether, and in what terms, it could be exploited for the raising of (critical) language awareness. Most sociolinguistic studies which have used literature…

This paper draws on the KINSA project (The Communicative Situation of Immigrants at Swedish Workplaces), which aimed to identify communicative factors that have a positive impact on the integration of second language speakers in the workplace and in their immediate work team. The focus here is on humour and swearing as strategies for doing…

In the context of public debates on teacher quality, both media and education policy texts construct deficit discourses about teachers, discourses that work together to inform public, commonsense understandings of teacher quality. This paper explores the interrelationships between discourses on teachers constructed on television and in policies in…

While interaction inside the classroom--frontstage discourse--has been a subject of study and has been considered the most significant type of discourse that teachers engage in, I propose that interaction outside the classroom--backstage discourse--is equally significant and has not thus far received as much attention as it merits. This paper is…

This analysis looks at the humorous use of second-speaker repeats to initiate conversational repair. It is proposed that consideration of joking repeats forces reanalysis of the organization of conversational repair. The preference analysis theory is rejected in favor of a locally governed analysis of conversational repair in which participants…

A collection of gross errors in language usage can be used effectively for classroom practice in error analysis and can increase students' understanding of the conceptual and functional frameworks of language use by appealing to their sense of humor. (MSE)