NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK!

This book explores a virtually untapped, yet fascinating research area: television dialogue. It reports on a study comparing the language of the American situation comedy Friends to natural conversation. Transcripts of the television show and the American English conversation portion of the Longman Grammar Corpus provide the data for this corpus-based investigation, which combines Douglas Biber's multidimensional methodology with a frequency-based analysis of close to 100 linguistic features. As a natural offshoot of the research design, this study offers a comprehensive description of the most common linguistic features characterizing natural conversation. Illustrated with numerous dialogue extracts from Friends and conversation, topics such as vague, emotional, and informal language are discussed. This book will be an important resource not only for researchers and students specializing in discourse analysis, register variation, and corpus linguistics, but also anyone interested in conversational language and television dialogue.

Table of contents

List of tables ix List of figures xi-xii Foreword xiii Chapter 1. Opening credits: Conversation and TV dialogue 1-15 Chapter 2. Setting the stage: The main characters 17-27 Chapter 3. Behind the scenes: Methodology and data 29-55 Chapter 4. Take 1: Dimensions and similarities 57-69 Chapter 5. Some you know I mean it's really urgh: Vague language 71-86 Chapter 6. I am just really really happy…: Emotional language 87-105 Chapter 7. I'm just hanging out. Y'know, having fun: Informal language 107- 121 Chapter 8. Once upon a time: Narrative language 123-137 Chapter 9. That's a wrap: Implications and applications 139-150 References 151-155 Appendix 157-161 Name index 163 Subject index 165

"The age-old question of whether art reflects or creates reality is never absent from this book, and Quaglio's investigation offers a window on the everyday: what we hear every day around us and what we hear on TV, both of which often startle us by their novelty and creativity, and which seem to feed off each other. This book brings corpus linguistics firmly into the world of pragmatics, humour, emotion and the ordinary stuff of social talk." Michael McCarthy , The University of Nottingham

"Quaglio tackles a question that has been of interest to linguists for many years: How are television dialogues similar to, or different from natural conversation? The methodology for this study is clearly described and will be a valuable resource to language researchers. The detailed descriptions of language use coupled with the extensive use of examples makes for informative and entertaining reading for a wide range of scholars interested in language and its use in different contexts." Randi Reppen , Northern Arizona University

"Quaglio's study is thorough, well thought-out, and methodically sound. [...] a fascinating linguistic study that will appeal to scholars with a wide range of interests: corpus linguistics, conversation analysis, genre studies, language perception, and beyond." Jessie Sams, Stephen F. Austin State University, on Linguist List 21.239, 2010