Discourse and context
Subtitle: a socio-cognitive approach
By: Teun A. van Dijk.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Cambridge; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 267
ISBN-13: 9780521895590
Subjects: Includes bibliographical references and index; Discourse analysis -- Social aspects; Context (Linguistics); Communication -- Social aspects; Cognition
Description: How do social situations influence language use, discourse and conversation? This book is the first monograph to present a multidisciplinary theory of context and the way context influences language use and discourse. Unlike in earlier approaches, contexts are not defined as objective social 'variables', such as gender or age. Rather, they are constructs of the participants themselves, that is, 'subjective definitions of the communicative situation' that are made explicit in the new sociocognitive notion of context models. These models dynamically control all language use, make sure that discourses are appropriate in the communicative situation and hence are the basis of pragmatics. In this book, context models are studied especially from a (socio) linguistic and cognitive perspective. In another book published by Cambridge University Press, Society and Discourse, Teun A. van Dijk develops the social psycho-logical, sociological and anthro-pological dimensions of the theory of context.