“With its clear and appealing style, the book can be recommended to students and scholars alike. Students may benefit from the interdisciplinary approach, which is rarely found in the rather strict subdivision of linguistics, and from the inclusion of works and examples by Eastern European scholars, as those are not very common in a Western European context. Furthermore, students will find the glossary incredibly helpful for a more thorough understanding of the topic, as it provides a quick way of going back to a term or concept from the earlier chapters. Anita Naciscione's book is written in a very concise and understandable manner suitable for both phraseologists and newcomers to the field, and it is sure to remain a major contribution to a better appreciation of phraseology in its unique position among, and its links to, other linguistic disciplines.”
“
Stylistic Use of Phraseological Units in Discourse is a real must if you are interested in innovative cognitive research of discoursal use of phraseological units.”
Elena Arsenteva, Kazan Federal University, Russia
“Anita Naciscione’s new book is a marvellous scholarly achievement that makes a major contribution to our understanding of phraseological units in discourse. She offers deep insights into how phraseological units may be identified, used in creative and systematic patterns in language and visual media, and reveal fundamental characteristics of the figurative mind. The book is a pleasure to read, not only because of the many wonderful literary examples she describes, but because Naciscione situates her discussions within contemporary cognitive linguistic theory and enduring pedagogical questions. I can think of no single work that combines the study of cognition and stylistics in such an invigorating, beautiful manner.”
Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr., University of California, Santa Cruz, USA
“Phraseology is an uncomfortable overlapping zone for the "meta-linguistic establishment", whose guardians use to dodge the issue arguing its crossroads position between syntax, lexicon, or simply by pushing the whole field to the background of more or less exceptional phenomena. Stylistic perspective avoids the constraints and difficulties of the taxonomic approach, by focusing on language use, leading Anita Naciscione to reverse the mechanism, investigating even beyond the phraseological units themselves, in the linguistic jungle of discourse, where the thousand faces of reality are moving without preconceived hedges.”
Antonio Pamies Bertrán, European Society of Phraseology
“An excellent and unique book on the vast range and uses of phraseology. Its style is direct and to the point, making a complex subject easy to follow. The blend between theory and practice has been skilfully woven together and provides useful information for a wide spectrum of readers, including not only academics, but also teachers, students, translators, lexicographers and those working in the advertising world.”
Richard Trim, Université de Provence, France
“This is a distinguished and inspiring approach to an area of linguistic and stylistic analysis where the crossover potential for discussion and pedagogy is considerable. An important contribution to the under-resourced area of phraseology.”
John McRae,
University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
“Stylistic Use of Phraseological Units in Discourse by Anita Naciscione is the most comprehensive interdisciplinary study of stylistic behavior of idioms available today. The findings presented have implications for teaching and learning a foreign language, translation practice, lexicography, glossography and advertising, as well as for the general stylistics, cognitive linguistics, and ultimately, phraseology. A special added value of this study is the diachronic approach that spans periods from Old English to Middle, Early Modern and Modern English periods, and authors from Shakespeare, Chaucer, D.H. Lawrence and Lewis Carroll, to more contemporary authors and copywriters. All this entitles us to claim that this book is unique in scope, focus and applicability, and that it will become a landmark piece of discourse-based phraseological research many will turn to for reference and inspiration.”
Marija Omazić, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University, Osijek & Olga Fomičov, University of Tuzla, in Jezikoslovije 12(1): 93-111
“The book is a clearly written account of the role that phraseological units play in generating stylistic effects in discourse. Naciscione draws on a range of disciplines - from discourse analysis to cognitive linguistics - to explain phraseological meaning, and, in an area notorious for its wealth of (often confusing) terminology, she does an excellent job of steering the reader through the mass of literature on the topic. What is particularly pleasing about the book is its focus on what Naciscione calls applied stylistics; that is, the practical application of insights from stylistics, particularly in teaching and learning and the development of pedagogic materials (see the section below on 'Applied Stylistics' for more on this area). Naciscione draws attention to the importance of stylistic literacy for learners, and while her focus is often on the foreign language classroom, the same principles apply for speakers of English as a first language.”
Language & Literature 20(4), 2011
“This is an important book, one written on those peculiarly difficult, and particularly fruitful, borderlands of psychology, linguistics and literary studies. [...] Naciscione’s book is at the forefront of research into phraseology, but its approach – cognitive, diachronic, applied, stylistic – makes it relevant and interesting in the field of literary studies, too. If we want to make the subject of English relevant and important again, then we need to adopt a similar approach to Naciscione’s and to see literary texts as linguistic products of human minds. Naciscione’s book is an invitation to begin that process of renewal of our subject.”
David West, University of Münster, in Changing English 19, 2012
“Wolfgang Mieder is right in emphasising the significance, originality and value of Anita Naciscione's study since it provides an extremely comprehensive and competent analysis of PUs in use, both synchronically and diachronically, which is the result of almost forty years of research in the field. What strikes the reader is the enormous amount of empirical data used, taken from the works of Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, G. Bernard Shaw, D.H. Lawrence, Lewis Carroll, James Thurber, to cite just a few, in addition to examples from non-fiction texts, which adds depth and validity to what must certainly be viewed as an important study of phraseological communication in English from a cognitive perspective.”
Daniele Franceschi, University of Pisa, in The European English Messenger 21(1): 72-74, 2012
“Overall, the work can be recommended as a welcome attempt to provide a meta-language to describe the way proverbs and phrases work in reality. It is also a linguistic work that is not blind to the role of tradition and cultural difference: ‘It is quite common to find instantial use in serious financial articles in English while in Latvian it would be extremely rare or almost unthinkable. The cultural traditions vary’ (168). Furthermore, although the author is looking at written texts, her approach seems equally applicable to oral discourse. For instance, the word ‘writing’ in her remark ‘the full stop in writing to mark the end of the sentence is not a full stop in the flow of thought’ (17) could just as easily be ‘speech’. It is, in particular, her attempt to look at language at a discoursal level (i.e. taking a focus above that of the lone sentence, and following the links found to and from a phrase or metaphor over long stretches of language) that is especially applicable to speech too, and something which should prove stimulating for folklorists.”
Jonathan Roper, University of Tartu, Estonia, in Folklore 124(2):237-238