New Discourse on Language addresses the need for innovative analyses of multi-modal discourse, identity and affiliation within functional linguistics. The chapters in this volume are connected by their common underlying theoretical approach, Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), and by their focus on semantic variation (across modalities of communication and between speakers) as well as the negotiation of identity and affiliation.
The analyses focus on a diverse range of texts from very different contexts, using analytic techniques that are based on the latest research in this field. They represent a wealth of exploratory, innovative and challenging perspectives, and are a key contribution to the extension of systemic-functional theory to the analysis of multimodality, identity and affiliation.
The volume is of interest to linguists, applied linguists, semioticians, and communication theorists.

Monika Bednarek is a Lecturer in Linguistics at the University of Sydney, Australia.
J. R. Martin is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sydney, Australia.

Notes on
Contributors \ 1. Semantic Variation: Modelling System, Text and Affiliation in
Social Semiosis J. R. Martin \ 2. Wrinkling Complexity: Concepts of Identity
and Affiliation in Humour Naomi Knight \ 3. Making Metre Mean: Identity and Affiliation
in the Rap Music of Kanye West David Caldwell \ 4. Khao naa nung: A Multimodal
Analysis of Thai-language Newspaper Front Pages John Knox, Pattama Patpong and
Yupaporn Piriyasilpa \ 5. Doubling-up: Allusion and Bonding in Multisemiotic News
Stories Helen Caple \ 6. Playing with 'femininity': An Inter-modal Analysis of Bilingual
picture book The Ballad of Mulan Ping Tian \ 7. Imagining Communities: A Multifunctional
Approach to Identity Management in texts Ken Tann \ 8. Intersemiotic Relations
as Logogenetic Patterns: Towards the Restoration of the Time Dimension in Hypertext
Description Sumin Zhao \ 9. The Coupling of Gesture and Phonology Michele Zappavigna,
Chris Cléirigh, Paul Dwyer and J.R. Martin \ 10. Corpus Linguistics and
Systemic Functional Linguistics: Interpersonal meaning, Identity and Bonding in
Popular Culture Monika Bednarek \ Index