Historically, fictional productions which use sign language have often begun with scripts that use the written version of a spoken language. This can be a challenge for deaf actors as they must translate the written word to a performed sign language text. Here, we explore script development in "Small World," a television comedy which…

Hollywood blockbuster films have long attracted not only mass audiences but also scholarly attention. In line with contemporary applied linguistics interests in telecinematic discourse, the present study draws upon concepts and techniques in corpus linguistics to describe the language of American mainstream film scripts. The concept of lexical…

This article explores academic and industry perspectives on the use of dialect, slang, and historical language in screenwriting. It offers a chronological overview of major screenwriting manuals' treatment of dialect and slang (or lack thereof) 1946-2020. It then presents survey data of 53 currently-practicing screenwriters' views on working with…

Discourse markers (DMs) are significant for fluent speech. Furthermore, they are essential elements of language for conversation organisation, reciprocal relation of interlocutors, productive speaking and comprehension. Although they have critical functions for pragmatic development, they are neglected in language teaching either because of the…

Although millions of EFL learners benefit from watching subtitled/captioned movies and TV shows in non-instructional settings, one almost untouched area is the development of strategies in benefiting from film scripts and their translated versions as well as audio language-subtitle combinations. This paper reports research subsequent to the…

Three data sets of primary and secondary interjections were compared: (1) the original interjections written into the text of Jane Austen's (1813/1994) novel "Pride and prejudice"; (2) the interjections read aloud in commercial recordings by six professional readers of the entire text of the novel; (3) the interjections spoken by actresses and…

Explores how inferential or evocative language functions to determine meaning and focus in screenplays. Demonstrates that, although "shooting scripts" might be read as instructions, "screenplays" can be understood only as a form of writing that communicates its meaning through the connotative nuances of language. Shows how…