Space, Place and the Discursive Construction of Identity

Over the last few years there has been a burgeoning interest in both space and place as linguistic phenomena. Some of this interest stemmed from studies on the situatedness of language and speech in time and space and how deixis anchors speech to a context. Both our frame of reference with respect to surrounding space and how we conceive and describe it are closely linked to the language we speak. This is why different cultures perceive spatial relations differently, with speakers of one language, for instance, encoding spatial relations with respect to absolute directions while speakers of a different language use egocentric terms.
This book focuses on space, place and the discursive construction of identity in the present, globalized era, where technological developments are causing a change in the perception of spatial boundaries and geographical locations, and identities are experienced in hitherto unknown ways.

Until her retirement Julia Bamford was Professor of English Language and Translation at Università degli Studi di Napoli, «l’Orientale». Her research interests include spoken discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, language for special purposes and translation of specialized discourse, repetition in discourse, academic discourse and the discourse of popularization.
Franca Poppi is Associate Professor of English Language and Translation at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia where she is also Director of the Master Course in Languages for Communicating in Businesses and International Organizations. She has published on various aspects of teacher-learner interaction, learner autonomy and advising in self-instruction. Her current research centers on English as an international lingua franca.
Davide Mazzi is researcher in English Language and Translation at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. His research activity has essentially focused on the following areas: discourse analysis, corpus linguistics and argumentation studies. In particular, his research interests and related publications have concentrated on legal, academic and news discourse.