Abstract
In the opening chapter, Jianxin Ding provides an overview of the background, scope, purpose and methodology of his study of travel advertisements from The Times and Newsweek and the organization of the book. Chapter 2 reviews the notion of collocation from Firth and his three followers. Firth was the first to introduce the idea of collocation as a source of meaning, with context the most important notion in his early writing. His context of situation was an abstraction of ‘a schematic construct’ (p. 22). After Firth, Halliday highlighted the differences between lexis and grammar as two types of language patterning. Such difference was subsumed by the concept of ‘lexis as most delicate grammar’ (p. 25). Mitchell’s concern was with forms of language and highlighted the on-going nature of language. Sinclair and his colleagues take the corpus linguistic approach to collocation and give some priority to the idiom principle of interpreting language. Although these scholars have different perspectives, they all talk about the use of prefabricated language, which lays the foundation for Jianxin Ding’s study. Chapter 3 is devoted to the modeling of collocation in systemic functional grammar in which systemic grammar, functional grammar and register theory have been applied. Collocations are functionally categorized into ideational, interpersonal and textual types, although any collocation is a combination of those three strands of meaning in social discourse. Moreover, collocation as lexicogrammatical resources is closely related to register types, particularly in travel advertisements. Chapter 4 is concerned with ideational collocations which are considered as conventional ways of representing the world. In the register of travel advertising, ideational collocations represent mainly scenic beauty, service hospitality and travel events. Halliday’s framework of the logico-semantic relations of elaboration, extension and enhancement is applied to reveal the semantic relations of the ideational collocations. The expressions of attitude and ideology in travel advertising are also relevant to the ideational collocation. Chapter 5 turns to interpersonal collocations which provide language users with a resource for organizing language as an interactive event to create dialogism and text voices, to promote conviviality and other social emotions. The multi-voices in the travel advertisements are realized through different modalities and other forms of interpersonal collocations. Chapter 6 explores how textual collocations contribute to the logical and temporal cohesion of travel advertising discourse. Textual collocations establish conjunctive connections within sentences, as well as connections between portions of a discourse. Temporal collocations signal the timeframe in which events take place. Chapter 7 looks at metaphors from a collocational point of view. By pointing out the problems with referential interpretations of metaphor, Jianxin Ding puts forward a syntagmatic way of interpreting metaphor. Three typical syntactic patternings of metaphors are examined: intensive process, genitive structure and apposition. Advertisers use collocational metaphors to fulfill three functions: to excel in description, to persuade and play language games and to structure texts. Chapter 8 concludes the book by answering three research questions. First, habitual collocations and idiomatic expressions are utilized to convey representation of the world, construct dialogue, conviviality and text voices and create coherent and cohesive texts. Second, prefabricated language as lexicogrammatical resource is closely related to register. Third, the balance between routine and creativity is maintained through the use of metaphors in language.
Overall, this book opens a challenge to the study of linguistic prefabrication in discourse from a functional perspective. It enlarges our understanding of the idiomatic view of the lexicon and reinterpretation of Halliday’s notion of ‘lexis as most delicate grammar’. It also deepens our insight on the role of prefabricated language in language teaching and learning. One striking feature of this book lies in the material analyzed. The material used in this study is travel advertising discourse, which is the ideal domain for selling goods and services socially, for the construction of the identities of consumers, and for expressing the interpersonal relationships in the society. However, travel advertising as a register has rarely been discussed before. Lexical phrases of various kinds play important roles in constructing travel advertising discourse. The study of habitual collocations and idiomatic expression opens a new stage of ‘linguistic capitalism’ of advertising. A second striking feature is the discourse analysis approach adopted in this study. This study is a reaction against the traditional structural approach by taking the study of collocation and idiomatic expression into a consideration of function and behavior in discourse. Collocations in travel advertising discourse have been classified into ideational, interpersonal and textual collocations under the theoretical framework of systemic functional grammar. Jianxin Ding explores the functions of prefabricated language in discourse and examines the interaction of two fundamental principles of language use, the ‘idiom principle’and the ‘open-choice principle’. A third feature lies in the function of metaphorical collocations in making a balance between creativity and prefabrication. Jianxin Ding claims that there is no distinct boundary between literal and figurative aspects of metaphorical collocations. Moreover, a register has its typical conventionalized metaphorical expressions. Such claims help us better understand the functions of metaphorical collocations in discourse. A final feature is that this study has implications for both linguistic theory and language teaching. Knowing prefabricated language is an essential part of knowing the nature of language. With linguistic prefabrication in focus, traditional boundaries between synchronic and diachronic, competence and performance, lexis and grammar, for example, can no longer be taken as absolute. Moreover, the theoretical implication leads to the approach to language teaching. Teaching prefabricated language forms provides teachers with a middle ground for teaching routine and creativity, grammar and lexis.
Although this book only focuses on the study of collocations in travel advertising discourse, it is notable that it represents current research in the field of discourse-oriented study of linguistic prefabrication. Every register has its own typical conventionalized expressions. All in all, it serves as a valuable academic resource for teaching learners to develop their skill of creative writing in different registers.