Focusing on the characterization of speech as a form of action, Exploring the Language of Drama introduces students to the stylistic analysis of drama. Here, some of the world's leading scholars demonstrate the importance of analyzing the text of drama rather than focusing on performance, presenting their approaches in an engaging and accessible style. The essays employ techniques from language analysis (specifically discourse analysis, cognitive linguistics and pragmatic) to explore the language of plays, looking at how different theories and approaches can be used to help us understand characterization in dialogue, the cognitive patterns that support the narrative and discourse of drama, and the basic mechanisms of conversation in dramatic dialogue. Each chapter ends in a summary with follow-up exercises, and offers practical advice on how to analyze a play extract and write it up as an assignment.