The study provides a comprehensive description of 'general nouns' from a micro- and macro-linguistic perspective. A corpus of different spoken and written genres is the basis for a detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis, which shows that 'general nouns' fulfil various genre-specific functions.

The author critically discusses the concept of general nouns, which Halliday/Hasan introduced in their approach to lexical cohesion (1976), and she provides a comprehensive overview of these nouns from a micro- and a macro-linguistic perspective. For the empirical analysis, the author compiled a corpus, which allows statements about a medium- and genre-specific use of general nouns. For this purpose, she developed an analytical tool, which takes into account formal and semantic features. The major outcome of the corpus analysis is that general nouns are much more flexible in form and function than Halliday/Hasan assumed and, most importantly, that they fulfil genre-specific functions some of which have not systematically been associated with lexical cohesion.

Autorentext

Vera Benninghoven has taught linguistics at the English department of the University of Bonn and the University of Cologne. Her research interests include morphology, lexicology, text-linguistics and corpus-linguistics.

Klappentext

The author critically discusses the concept of general nouns , which Halliday/Hasan introduced in their approach to lexical cohesion (1976), and she provides a comprehensive overview of these nouns from a micro- and a macro-linguistic perspective. For the empirical analysis, the author compiled a corpus, which allows statements about a medium- and genre-specific use of general nouns . For this purpose, she developed an analytical tool, which takes into account formal and semantic features. The major outcome of the corpus analysis is that general nouns are much more flexible in form and function than Halliday/Hasan assumed and, most importantly, that they fulfil genre-specific functions some of which have not systematically been associated with lexical cohesion.

Inhalt

Critical evaluation of Halliday/Hasan's concept of - Holistic description of these items from a micro- and a macro-linguistic perspective - Development of analytical tool based on the parameters modification and linkage - Corpus of over 300,000 words - Written and spoken genres - Quantitative and qualitative corpus analysis