The 'body' and 'discourse' seem diametrically opposed, but we interact with our bodies and represent ourselves and our relationships in bodily terms. This volume integrates new studies by leading researchers in sociolinguistics, sociology, social psychology and cultural theory. It explores the many interfaces of body and discourse, organized under three main themes: the body as an interactional resource; ideological representations of the body; and discursive constructions of the body in normal and pathological contexts.

The theory of accommodation is concerned with motivations underlying and consequences arising from ways in which we adapt our language and communication patterns toward others. Since accommodation theory's emergence in the early l970s, it has attracted empirical attention across many disciplines and has been elaborated and expanded many times. In Contexts of Accommodation, accommodation theory is presented as a basis for sociolinguistic explanation, and it is the applied perspective that predominates this edited collection. The book seeks to demonstrate how the core concepts and relationships...

Language, Society and the Elderly is the first concerted attempt to give a social account of language and interaction in later life. The book gives a detailed critique of the cognitive bias of existing studies of elderly people's language. In its place, the authors propose a socially-based approach which explains how older people's life circumstances, concerns, goals and beliefs influence their styles of interaction.

This work shows that aging is not only an individual process but an interactive one. The study of communication can lead to an understanding of what it means to grow old. We may age physiologically and chronologically, but our social aging - how we behave as social actors toward others, and even how we align ourselves with or come to understand the signs of difference or change as we age - are phenomena achieved primarily through communication experiences. Many of the chapters work to deny earlier images of aging as involving normative decrement to provide a picture of aging as a process of...

This second edition of the Handbook of Communication and Aging Research captures the ever-changing and expanding domain of aging research. Since it was first recognized that there is more to social aging than demography, gerontology has needed a communication perspective. Like the first edition, this handbook sets out to demonstrate that aging is not only an individual process but an interactive one. The study of communication can lead to an understanding of what it means to grow old. We may age physiologically and chronologically, but our social aging--how we behave as social actors...

In Contexts of Accommodation, accommodation theory is presented as a basis for sociolinguistic explanation, and it is the applied perspective that predominates this edited collection.