This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Hopper, P. J. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Linguistics and Micro-Rhetoric

A Twenty-First Century Encounter

Carnegie Mellon University

Increasingly linguists look to usage for explanations of how patterns of forms come to acquire grammatical status. This search leads linguistics closer to the realm of inquiry traditionally occupied by rhetoric, the study of the effective uses of language. It is proposed here that a view of language as temporal brings these two disciplines closer, and that, in fact, (usage-based) linguistics is nothing other than the "micro" end of rhetoric. As an example of the kind of rethinking of linguistic structure necessary to accommodate this proposal, it is argued that the unfolding of discourse in time proceeds by a progressive delivery of prepackaged formulas that are either juxtaposed or linked by apo koinou . Implications of these ideas for the academic organization of linguistics are discussed.

Key Words: Rhetoric • micro-rhetoric • usage-based linguistics • apo koinou • on-line syntax • pseudocleft • formulaicity

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?