Hyperbole in English - A Corpus-Based Study of Exaggeration

The first investigation of hyperbole in English, drawing on authentic data from spoken conversation, TV, newspapers, and literary works.

List of contents

1. Introduction; 2. The characteristics of hyperbole; 3. Realisations of hyperbole; 4. Using hyperbole: the speaker perspective; 5. Hyperbole in interaction; 6. Conventionalisation; 7. The rhetoric of hyperbole; Conclusion.

About the author

Claudia Claridge is Chair in English Linguistics at the Universität Duisburg-Essen, Germany. She is one of the compilers of the Lampeter Corpus of Early Modern English Tracts and is the author of Multi-word Verbs in Early Modern English (2000), based on the above corpus. Her main research interests lie in the fields of historical linguistics, pragmatics, discourse studies, and corpus linguistics. Within these fields, she has published articles on such diverse topics as irony, similes/comparison, superlatives, questions, conditionals, and discourse deixis. She has also contributed articles to various recent handbooks, such as the Handbook of Corpus Linguistics (2008) and the Handbook of Historical Pragmatics (2010).

Summary

The first investigation of hyperbole in English, drawing on genres such as spoken language, TV, newspapers, and literary works. Using approaches from semantics, pragmatics, discourse analysis and classical rhetoric, it explores both speaker- and addressee-related aspects of hyperbole, and shows it to be an important contributor to language change.

Product details

• Authors: Claudia Claridge, Claudia (Universitat Duisburg-Essen) Claridge, Claridge Claudia
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 17.04.2014
• EAN: 9781107637504
• ISBN: 978-1-107-63750-4
• No. of pages: 316
• Series: Studies in English Language; Studies in English Language
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > Other languages / Other literatures; English, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Semantics, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Grammar & Punctuation, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Syntax, Grammar, syntax & morphology, Grammar, syntax and morphology, Semantics, discourse analysis, stylistics, Semantics, discourse analysis, etc