Overview

This is the first edited volume dedicated specifically to first person non-singular reference (‘we’). Its aim is to explore the interplay between the grammatical means that a language offers for accomplishing collective self-reference and the socio-pragmatic – broadly speaking – functions of ‘we’. Besides an introduction, which offers an overview of the problems and issues associated with first person non-singular reference, the volume comprises fifteen chapters that cover languages as diverse as, e.g., Dutch, Greek, Hebrew, Cha’palaa and Norf’k, and various interactional and genre-specific contexts of spoken and written discourse. It, thus, effectively demonstrates the complexity of collective self-reference and the diversity of phenomena that become relevant when ‘we’ is not examined in isolation but within the context of situated language use. The book will be of particular interest to researchers working on person deixis and reference, personal pronouns, collective identities, etc., but will also appeal to linguists whose work lies at the interface between grammar and pragmatics, sociolinguistics, discourse and conversation analysis.

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9789027256447

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The most important contribution of this book is that it provides us with different lenses or approaches for examining the use of `we' in terms of personal pronouns, person deixis, collective identities, and category-bound activities within the context of situated language use. Many related issues or future research directions are proposed in the final section of each chapter, which can be a good guide to scholars and graduate students who are interested in the study of the interface between grammar and pragmatics. The most interesting part of this volume is that the use of `we' in various interactional and genre-specific contexts in different languages has many versatile functions, which provides us insight into the nature of the phenomenon of constructing collectivity with `we'. -- Cheng-Tuan Li, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, in Discourse Studies Vol. 19.4 (2017)

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