Business of Words

Crispin Thurlow is Professor of Language and Communication in the Department of English at the University of Bern, Switzerland.

• List of ContributorsChapter 1 – The (Grubby) Business of Words: What ‘George Clooney’ Tells UsPart 1: Language Work and the Business of WordsChapter 2 – Unequal Language Work(ers) in the Business of WordsChapter 3 – The Linguistic Business of MarketingPart 2: Wordsmiths and Professional Language WorkChapter 4 – Unwriteable Discourse? Co-crafting the Language of Science NewsChapter 5 – Voice Work: Learning About and From Dialect CoachesChapter 6 – EAT, LOVE and Other (Small) Stories: Tellability and Multimodality in Robert Indiana’s Word ArtChapter 7 – Judges as Wordsmiths: Crafting Clarity and Neutrality in Summing-up for JuriesChapter 8 – Making (up) the News: The Artful Language Work of Journalists in ‘Reporting’ TabooPart 3: Linguists and Political Economies of Expertise Chapter 9 – Framing Elite Knowledge in Shifting Linguistic Economies: The Case of Minority Language TranslationChapter 10 – Beyond the Academic ‘But’: The Pleasures and Politics of Collaborative Language Work in the Publishing IndustryChapter 11 – The Commercialisation of Linguistic Expertise in the Asylum Vetting ProcessChapter 12 – Engaging with School Principals as Language Policy WorkersIndex

‘In 1956, the French philologist Marcel Cohen suggested that language practices could usefully be understood as a form of work. Finally, decades later, we have a volume which takes up this idea seriously, exploring what language work/language as work tells us about questions of value, the social construction of reality, and social inequality in contemporary conditions. You won’t look at a keyboard – or a pen – the same way after you have read this book.’Monica Heller, Editor of the Journal of Sociolinguistics‘This pioneering volume on the production of high-end wordsmithery explores previously unengaged aspects of the political economy of language. In detailed examinations of the work of journalists, PR writers, marketers, linguists, and others, we see their word-craft in ways that clarify their critical and often invisible roles as semiotic brokers.’ Bonnie Urciuoli, Hamilton College (Emeritus), USA