Genres and influential language use  

Vesa Heikkinen (ed.) 2009: Kielen piirteet ja tekstilajit. Vaikuttavia valintoja tekstistä toiseen [Linguistic features and genres. Influential choices from one text to another]. Tietolipas 229. Helsinki: The Finnish Literature Society. 276 pages.

Does the President of the Republic use the pronoun I or we? Does a widely advertised shower gel wash without tears or does its secret lie in the no more tears formula? Why do some alcohol education texts claim that we have to cut down on boozing, whereas others settle with saying it would be worthwhile to cut down on it?

Even small linguistic choices can accomplish big, influential things. Individual features of texts can lead to powerful interpretations.

In this book the researchers analyse both the features visible in texts and the texts as a whole and as a genre. The wider research framework is one of influential language use: What kind of language use is influential? How are linguistic choices, texts, and their generic properties used for persuasive purposes?

The following genres are covered:

• advertisements,
• web texts,
• book reviews,
• fiction,
• instructive texts,
• official letters,
• New Year’s speeches,
• and university teaching portfolios.
  

The following linguistic features are analysed:

• multimodality,
• the proverb pattern ”better less x than much y”,
• metaphors,
• the colorative structure in Finnish (e.g. hiihtää reuhottaa, olla möllöttää),
• means of expressing obligation and opportunity, and 
• me-references.  
  

Contents

Vesa Heikkinen: Introduction: Text analysis on the relationships between linguistic features and genres

Leena Kuikka: Multimodality in a printed advertisement

Outi Lauhakangas: The proverb pattern in web texts

Pirkko Muikku-Werner: Metaphors in book reviews and their emphasis

Markku Varis: A girl beautiful as a dandelion and other metaphors in the work Hämärän tanssit

Vesa Heikkinen and Eero Voutilainen: Colorative structure in the novel Hirventappopaikka

Minna Sääskilahti: Necessive structures in alcohol education texts  

Suvi Honkanen: Clauses, moves, and (sub)genre in instructive official letters

Vesa Heikkinen and Mikko Lounela: Me in New Year’s Speeches

Anna Solin: The author me in university teaching portfolios