Linguistics books translated into Arabic: Here we talk about Metaphors in Discourse and Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis!

Has it ever happened to you that you visited a bookshop and you almost got lost there, flipping through books and thinking of book titles?

Well, this has happened to me and I am eager as well to read about your experiences?!

The weather was gloomy in Lancaster over the past week and I enjoy remembering this.

It was sunny and bright! Next to me was my father who was similing; walking with his stick which created a rhythm as we went by. We were heading towards Cairo Opera House where the bookshop of the Supreme Cultural Council lies.

Here I am moving around- flipping through translated books of literature, sociology and history translated into Arabic from many different languages: Greek, Japanese, English and German.

In the linguistics section, there were two books that I was super excited to see and get: Metaphors in Discourse (2008) by Elena Semino and Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (2009) edited by Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer. Both Elena Semino and Ruth Wodak are professors in the Department of Linguistics at Lancaster University, where I am currently studying. (P. S. Ruth Wodak is my PhD supervisor!). It was impressive to see books for them translated into Arabic in Egypt!  

Which book/author would you like me to start with?

Metaphors in Discourse (2008) is one of other five books for Elena Semino. (You are invited to read and explore her books, articles and presentations on her web-page on academia.edu). The book represents an important area of interest for the author among other areas of interest (here are linguistics terms coming!) such as cognitive stylistics; corpus stylistics and mind style in fiction.

Professor Elena Semino signing her book at Lancaster University.

The book offers a comprehensive view on “metaphor” which means -and I am quoting her- “the phenomenon whereby we talk and, potentially, think about something in terms of something else”  (page 1). An example is when we say that “life is a journey” in which life is conceptually represented as a journey.

As you may guess from the title, Metaphors in Discourse, the book argues that metaphors is “a pervasive linguistic phenomenon” and is  “central to many different types of communication, from informal interaction through political speeches to scientific” language.

In fact, the book is divided into six chapters, each appears to be focused on a particular domain; for example, language used in literature, science, politics and blog writing.  

Like the English version, the book is written in a clear language that can appeal to a lay reader; it is translated by Emad Abdel Latif and Khaled Tawfiq, who themselves are well-established Egyptian scholars of linguistics.

The second book, I am inviting you to read is, Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (2009, 2nd edition), which is an essential read for anyone interested in Critical Discourse Analysis.

The Arabic version of Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis translated by Housam Ahmed Farag and Azza Shebl Mohamed

So, what is Critical Discourse Analysis? 

CDA is an approach to language that assumes that discourse- language in use- is a social practice. A striking example is the use of the word “nigger” which exemplified an exclusionary practice against blacks in the past, as Ruth Wodak informed us in another important book she co-authored with Martin Reisigl, i.e. Discourse and Discrimination (2001). It is these exclusionary practices that CDA is critical of; for example you may like to explore Ruth Wodak's most recent book The Politics of Fear.
 
Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis has eight chapters. Chapter 1 by Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer discusses the development of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and the assumptions and principles underlying it. The book has contributions from many authors, including Norman Fairclough, Teun A. van Dijk, Ruth Wodak, Michael Meyer, Martin Reisigl, Gerlinde Mautner, Siegfried Jäger and Florentine Maier.

One thing I like about the two books, Metaphors in Discourse and Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, is that they can help us better understand language use, as a complex phenomenon that has many dimensions and aspects to it (for example, see chapter 4 by Martin Reisigl and Ruth Wodak on the Discourse Historical Approach).

The books have gained other personal meanings. In my small library at Lancaster, I sometimes revisit them. In a magical link, they take me back to the hums and buzzes of the streets of Cairo, to the Cairo Opera House, re-experiencing this awesome feeling that Cairo Opera House is a meeting place for so many languages and topics!

It is also a great pleasure that the two books are signed by two great scholars who are already celebrities in their fields! Visiting a bookshop can indeed become a remarkable experience!

Linguistics on the run

It has been a while since I last wrote on blogspot. I have enjoyed blogging for many years and I never lost hope of writing again.

Let me tell you what this blog is about and what it aims to achieve.

I graduated from the Department of English Language at Cairo University and I am now at Lancaster to undertake my PhD in the Department of Linguistics at Lancaster University, in England, a great place to be if you are interested in linguistics and literature.

Well, my PhD journey is coming to its destination soon (with an awarded PhD! I hope). But for a couple of weeks or even months, the idea of this blog has been haunting me. I would like to create a blog about linguistics, not aimed at linguists, who are very wonderful people by the way ;) but to readers who may not have read about sociolinguistics, pragmatics, discourse analysis and translation studies; some of the interesting disciplines I have enjoyed so far (trust me!).

So, through this blog, I will share with you some of the interesting things (events, books, topics) I experienced and my reflections on them.

So what this blog post is about?

In this first post, I will talk about “multi-modality” and will celebrate with you my new publication, on the topic!

Multi-modality is an approach “that understands communication and representation to be more than about language”. This means that in analysing interactions and communication, we take into account other elements in addition to verbal language such as image, colour and sound.

Last year, I participated in a conference on multi-modality in Bremen, in Germany.

And a book- that has developed out of the conference- is recently published, edited by Dr Janina Wildfeuer at Bremen University who herself has many publications on multi-modal analysis including a monograph on film discourse interpretation.

The name of the book that is recently published is Building Bridges for Multi-modal Research published by Peter Lang. As the name may suggest, the book provides an understanding of the different perspectives on multi-modality and how to combine the different approaches to multi-modal analysis.

The title of the chapter I wrote in the book is "Multi-modality in Perspective: Towards a Synergy of the Discourse Historical Approach and the framework of Visual Grammar".

I would like to explain what these terms refer to.

The Discourse Historical Approach is an interdisciplinary approach that suggests that “context” is important to language analysis. It proposes a multi-layered concept of "context" that includes: not only the immediate language (for example, the linguistic aspects used to describe particular groups/individuals) but also the situational context (for example, where the speech event takes place and whether it is a formal or an informal event). It also includes examining the social and historical contexts surrounding the language used (for example, the historical and social background of the intended audience).

The theory of Visual Grammar looks into the communicative functions of images. Like verbal language, images can have communicative meanings. An image, for example, may describe an action in what is called by Kress and Van Leeuwen (1996) a “narrative visual structure”. Or it may describe attributes of a person or object (take a map as an example) in what is named as “analytical structures” (Kress and Van Leeuwen 1996: 45-87).

In the chapter I wrote, I propose that a synergy of the Discourse Historical Approach and the theory of Visual Grammar will benefit from the methodological rigour of the two approaches and enable us to analyse both verbal and visual language. I apply the two approaches to televangelism (i.e. preaching religion via the Internet/television) which has become popular over the past few decades.

One reason I am super excited about the book and my contribution to it is that it features writings by well-known scholars in multi-modal research such as Diane Mavers in the UK and Hartmut Stöckl in Austria.

When I received the book in the post, the first thing I did was to take a photo of the book with the lovely postcard I received from the editor. It features a painting by Margaret Sara Carpenter called The Sisters, displayed in Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The photo is taken in my room in Kirkham before moving to my ever cutest city- Lancaster!