The Language of Conferencing

This book focuses on a hitherto neglected area of research within the fields of academic and professional discourse: the language of conferencing. The volume represents a range of perspectives, from the conference as a whole event to the conference as a system of potential genres, within a given discourse community. Some discourse features of conference language are examined in detail, such as strategies for politeness and other interpersonal management during presentations and discussions. The pedagogical implications of conference research are also addressed; and indeed there is a growing need for such a focus. Novice conference participants need explicit linguistic description of and training in, the relevant genres to enable them to become fully-fledged members of their professional discourse communities. Additionally, the work in this volume makes a valuable contribution to the understanding of the intercultural and educational dimensions of the increasing dominance of English as an international lingua franca - in conferences and beyond.

The Editors: Eija Ventola, Univ.-Prof., The University of Salzburg. Early work on discourse analysis includes studies on casual conversations, chats, and service encounters as well as developing dynamic modelling for the analysis of interactional discourse. Recent research, teaching and publications on academic discourse genres, museum and tourism discourses, language of business functional linguistics, the language of (video)conferencing and ’internetting’ and intercultural perspectives; numerous articles on discourse analysis and textlinguistics, language teaching and the language of textbooks, academic/scientific writing, the language of literature and translation.
Celia Shalom, The University of Liverpool. Teaching and research interests in discourse and genre analysis, vocabulary and teacher training. Dr. Shalom teaches on the M.A. courses in Applied linguistics and English Language Teaching and Learning and is co-ordinator of the Pre-sessional Courses in English for Academic Purposes for international students. She has published articles in the field of English for specific purposes.
Susan Thompson, The University of Liverpool. Teaching and research interests in the analysis of spoken discourse, English for Specific Purposes and applications of discourse analysis for language teaching. Dr. Thompson is Course Director for the M.A. course in Applied Linguistics, and teaches courses on Discourse Analysis, and Spoken Discourse and the Teaching of Listening and Speaking Skills. She has published articles in the field of spoken discourse analysis and applications for language teaching.