ABSTRACT
If I cast my mind back and try to recall what it was that persuaded me to undertake a book on semantic prosody, it may be that my original objective was simply to pin this concept down once and for all, to establish precisely what semantic prosody is. Indeed when I began researching the subject, interested colleagues would enquire about my investigations and ask me what this arcane-sounding ‘semantic prosody’ might be. My response was generally of a rambling, circuitous nature, more often than not expressed in highly metaphorical terms, in view of the fact that semantic prosody appears to attract metaphors like a light bulb attracts moths.
