The Expression of Gratitude in the Prefaces of Academic Books in Linguistics

Abstract

The present chapter focuses on the expression of gratitude in academic books in linguistics. This research has been conducted using a corpus of prefaces found in books published from the year 2000 up to 2019 in the field of linguistics. The purpose of the preface has been earlier described in the scientific literature, and this is the indication of both the purpose and the scope of the book. The communicative goal of the preface genre is academic and promotional. Even if this genre is certainly not lengthy in the number of tokens it may contain, it exhibits extraordinary evidence as to the language of appraisal and affect, and this is a very suitable proper context to find thanking expressions. In this chapter, I explore the way writers express their gratitude for any help or support obtained from third parties in their prefaces. Conclusions deal with variation concerning the form of thanking expressions and their functions in the texts under analysis.