Introduction: Text-Based Research and Teaching

Abstract

Every day we interact with texts in a range of social settings: with family and friends, on the daily commute, at our desks, in the lunchroom and when we turn on the television. We are regularly texting, tweeting, Googling, podcasting, Facebooking and Instagraming—all with texts. We make and break relationships with texts. We make war and peace with texts. We teach with texts. We learn with texts. And yet, more often than not, we are not conscious of the variations in text types and the grammatical and wording selections of the texts because our attention is concentrated on the meanings of what we say and read. When we read a book, view an advertisement, or listen to a political promo, we may be only partially aware of how specific language selections influence our responses. At the time of writing this introduction, Australia is in the midst of a federal election campaign. The part language plays in the political campaign is particularly raucous with slogans, scorn, censure and contempt. Relevant to the political and other arenas, the studies in this book reveal the intricacy and complexity of normal language use, and depict methods for the investigation and analysis of natural language use. The chapters report the kind of research which examines texts and genres across domains of human experience and from different perspectives, and illustrate what the interrogation of texts reveals and informs about the English language system—how it functions for the expression of conventional and potential meanings.