Allusions in the press: an applied linguistic study
Edition: 1 Auflage.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG
Published: 2004
Place of publication: Berlin
Language: eng
Number of pages: 297
Subjects: Englisch und Altenglisch; OUR Brockhaus selection
Description: This corpus-based study of allusions in the British press shows the range of targets journalists allude to - from Shakespeare to TV soaps, from Jane Austen to Hillary Clinton, from hymns to nursery rhymes, proverbs and riddles. It analyzes the linguistic forms allusions take and demonstrates how allusions function meaningfully in discourse. It explores the nature of the background cultural and intertextual knowledge allusions demand of readers and sets out the processing stages involved in understanding an allusion. Allusion is integrated into existing theories of indirect language and linked to idioms, word-play and metaphor.