In this article the relevance of a sociocognitive approach to discourse is shown by presenting a new theory of context, defined as subjective participants’ constructs of communicative situations, and made explicit in terms of mental models - context models - in Episodic Memory. Through a ‘contextual analysis’ of a fragment of one of the ‘Iraq’ speeches by Tony Blair in the British House of Commons, it is shown how such context models control and explain many political (...) aspects of interaction that cannot be accounted for in autonomous approaches to text and talk. Context models thus provide an explicit theory of relevance and the situational appropriateness of discourse, and hence also a basis for theories of style. (shrink)

Understanding a sentence and integrating it into the discourse depends upon the identification of its focus, which, in spoken German, is marked by accentuation. In the case of written language, which lacks explicit cues to accent, readers have to draw on other kinds of information to determine the focus. We study the joint or interactive effects of two kinds of information that have no direct representation in print but have each been shown to be influential in the reader’s text (...) comprehension: i. the (low-level) rhythmic-prosodic structure that is based on the distribution of lexically stressed syllables, and ii. the (high-level) discourse context that is grounded in the memory of previous linguistic content. Systematically manipulating these factors, we examine the way readers resolve a syntactic ambiguity involving the scopally ambiguous focus operator auch (engl. `too') in both oral (Experiment 1) and silent reading (Experiment 2). The results of both experiments attest that discourse context and local linguistic rhythm conspire to guide the syntactic and, concomitantly, the focus-structural analysis of ambiguous sentences. We argue that reading comprehension requires the (implicit) assignment of accents according to the focus structure and that, by establishing a prominence profile, the implicit prosodic rhythm directly affects accent assignment. (shrink)

forthcoming in Studies on Language and Information (CSLI), Stanford.

Based on the analysis of narrations in Free Indirect Discourse and the Historical Present, we argue that the grammatical notion of context of speech should be ramified into a Context of Thought and a Context of Utterance. Tense and person depend on the Context of Utterance, while all other indexicals are evaluated with respect to the Context of Thought. Free Indirect Discourse and the Historical Present are analyzed as special combinatorial possibilities that arise (...) when the two contexts are distinct, and exactly one of them is presented as identical to the physical point at which the sentence is articulated. (shrink)

This paper attempts to account for the contrastive discourse connective (tam) tersine (‘on the contrary’) in Turkish discourse. We suggest that this connective evokes a discourse structure which has at least three parts: the material in the prior linguistic context, its refutation, and then rectification in the clause where the connective is hosted. Since negation is obligatory in the discourse context for refutation, we include a discussion of negation and we conclude that the obligatory (...) negative clauses are instances of descriptive negation rather than metalinguistic negation. We show that linguistic and cognitive contexts interact in producing and interpreting the discourse adverbial connective under discussion and the discourse structure in which it is used. It is claimed that (tam) tersine serves to bring closer the cognitive context of the intended audience to that of the writer’s while minimizing any potential discrepancies in the audience’s and the writer’s cognitive context. We argue that this discourse connective and the discourse it evokes are used in the argumentative mode. (shrink)

Current theories of context see context as composed of information that is localizable to individual utterances. Current theories of discourse grant that discourses have important global properties that are not so localizable. In this paper, I argue that context, even narrowly construed as whatever combines with a sentence to determine truth conditions, must have a discourse -global component. I identify a context-dependence phenomenon related to the linguistic concepts of topic and focus, isolate the pertinent (...) feature of context, and show that this feature must be discourse -global in nature. I thus argue that context is as complicated as an entire discourse. (shrink)

Current theories of context see context as composed of information that is localizable to individual utterances. Current theories of discourse grant that discourses have important global properties that are not so localizable. In this paper, I argue that context, even narrowly construed as whatever combines with a sentence to determine truth conditions, must have a discourse–global component. I identify a context–dependence phenomenon related to the linguistic concepts of topic and focus, isolate the pertinent feature (...) of context, and show that this feature must be discourse–global in nature. I thus argue that context is as complicated as an entire discourse. (shrink)

Interpretation at the argumentative level, like action selection in response to environmental change, requires decision-making based on context construction. By boosting the efficiency of this process, discourse markers keep variations in the interlocutor's processing context within a certain range.

The classic Lewis-Stalnaker semantics for counterfactuals captures that Sobel sequences are consistent sequences, for example: a.If Sophie had gone to the parade, she would have seen Pedro dance. b.But if Sophie had gone to the parade and been stuck behind someone tall, she would not have seen Pedro dance. But reverse a sequence like this one and it no longer sounds so good, which is surprising on the classic semantics. This observation motivated Kai von Fintel and Thony Gillies to propose (...) dynamic semantic accounts of counterfactual conditionals. Subsequently, Sarah Moss defended the classic semantics against the charge that it need be abandoned in the face of these order effects, arguing that the infelicity of the reverse sequences is pragmatic. I argue that both accounts are ultimately untenable, but each account has strengths. Seeing what works and what doesn't in each account points the way to the right positive view. With this in mind, I defend a contextualist account of counterfactuals that takes conversational relevance to play a central role. (shrink)

The idea of radical pedagogy is connected to the ideals of social justice and democracy and also to the ethical demands of love, care and human flourishing, an emotional context that is sometimes forgotten in discussions of power and inequality. Both this emotional context and also the emphasis on politics can be found in the writings of Paolo Freire, someone who has provided much inspiration for radical pedagogy over the years. However, Freire did not create any explicit ethical (...) foundation for radical pedagogy. This paper argues that, when constructing normative grounds for radical pedagogy, Habermas’s discourse ethics can be an important source, with the caveat that discourse ethics on its own is not sufficient grounding enough where radical pedagogy is concerned. Habermasian critical theory should be supplemented with Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition, as Freire’s focus on love and human flourishing corresponds well with Honneth’s theory’s three modes of recognition: love, rights and respect (solidarity stemming from mutual relations of respect). (shrink)

An examination of Ian Parker's definitions of discourse reveals them to be non-distinctive and of limited utility. It is argued that discourse analysis should be integrated with, rather than set against, social psychology. Discourse analysts should attend to the issues of the representativeness and generality of their evidence, should be wary of attributing causality to discourse, and should consider the advantages of systematically investigating, rather than asserting, the social consequences of the use of different discourses.

The article explores the concept of humanism both in modern discourse and in historical retrospective. Human has always been at the center of philosophy, regardless of what spheres of being were studied. Anthropology, cultural studies, psychology, philosophy, and many other sciences explore various manifestations of a person, all of which are ultimately designed to answer perhaps one of the most critical questions – what makes us human? However, this discourse significantly changed over the course of two thousand years. (...) For example, Martin Heidegger points out an important nuance of the emergence of the concept of humanism, namely, as a kind of chauvinism – the division into humans (Romans) and non-humans (barbarians). This point of view is often overlooked, but it is critical to understanding the essence of this phenomenon. In the subsequent era of the Middle Ages, human was understood as the opposite of the divine, but in such realities, there were humanistic ideals and values. Already in the Renaissance, a return to the traditions of antiquity was announced, but the understanding of a person acquired a romantic character. Humanism clearly saw something more in a person than a person himself could demonstrate. It is for this metaphysical image that many critics of humanism have criticized this phenomenon. However, where there is criticism, there is progress, which is why this concept has gained a new round of discourse, which is why new trends have appeared that have brought the concept of humanism to a new theoretical level. As a historical phenomenon, humanism is faced with certain difficulties of new eras; because of these collisions, humanism is modified and adapted. Among humanism’s problems are multiculturalism, technological breakthroughs, and the need to search for new theories. In its development, the course of humanism takes on various forms and iterations. It is worth mentioning transhumanism (the idea of becoming someone more than just a human), posthumanism (philosophical views on human nature as a posthuman), and global humanism. (shrink)

The fundamental interaction between discourse and context that pervades Newman’s many works provides the thread that weaves this collection together. There are five major divisions in the book.

Some expressions, such as “all” and “might”, must be interpreted differently, relative to a single context, when embedded under “says that” than when unembedded. Egan, Hawthorne and Weatherson have appealed to that fact to argue that utterance-truth is relative to point of evaluation. This paper shows that the phenomena do not warrant this relativistic response. Instead, contexts may be defined as entities that assign other contexts to contextually relevant people, and context-relative truth conditions for indirect discourse sentences (...) can be satisfactorily formulated in terms of such contexts. (shrink)

One of the most widely debated and influential implications of the "demise" of positivism was the realization, now a commonplace, that philosophy of science must be firmly grounded in an understanding of the history of science, and/or of contemporary scientific practice. While the nature of this alliance is still a matter of uneasy negotiation, the principle that philosophical analysis must engage "real" science has transformed philosophical practice in innumerable ways. This short paper is the introduction to a symposium presented at (...) the 1994 PSA Biennial meetings that focused attention on recent developments at the interface between various disciplinary science studies fields. It brought together two philosophers who explore the implications of sociological and historical contextualization for philosophical studies of science, Brian Baigrie and Joseph Rouse; and a sociologist and historian, Andy Pickering and Betty Smocovitis, whose work raises philosophical questions about the sciences and about science studies. Each argued for ways of reconceptualizing our subject domains, our purposes, and our conventional strategies of inquiry that promise much richer understanding of the sciences, but necessarily challenge discipline-specific traditions of science studies quite profoundly. If there is a common theme to be discerned in these discussions it is that, in the spirit of Rouse's recommendations, science studies should be understood to be an essentially open ended and dynamic enterprise, like the sciences they study. (shrink)

Due to new innovations and changes, every language needs new words simply because there is a need for new words to name new things. It is a common occurrence for a speaker to use some words in a way that has never been used before in order to communicate directly about certain facts or ideas. When new inventions and changes come into people’s lives, there is a need to name them and talk about them. If a new word is used (...) by many speakers of the language, it will probably survive, and the same word will one day become an everyday word and enter the vocabulary of a language. This paper looks at compounding as one of the most productive word formation process in English. The term compounding refers to a process in which two or more lexemes are combined into one new word. When a word is formed by merging two or more words, each of which can be used separately, it is called a compound word. The term “word formation” has no universally accepted use. Word formation is sometimes defined as a process associated with changing the form of a word, for example, affixation, which is, in fact, the subject of morphology. In a broader sense, word formation covers the processes of creating new lexical items. In English, word formation is of great importance because this phenomenon affects the English dictionary, which in addition to borrowing from various other languages is enriched in this way. The aim of this paper was to investigate the context based vs. non-context interpretation of English compounds by EFL students in legal discourse. The findings from the test run-questionnaire showed that students of English as a foreign language found it more difficult to apply compound words in context rather than choosing an appropriate definition for them, with or without a given context. Furthermore, students scored lower when 50% of the compounds were given in context. (shrink)

Until recently, businesses and corporations could argue that their only real commitments were to maximise the return to their shareholders whilst staying within the law. However, the world has changed significantly during the last ten years and now most major corporations recognise that they have significant responsibility to local and global societies beyond simply making profit. This means that there is now an increasing concern with the question of how corporations, and their employees, ought to behave, and this leads us (...) to consider ethics as the appropriate theoretical and philosophical domain.I will bring into the debate two relatively recent approaches to ethics: Jürgen Habermas's discourse ethics ; and the critical realist approach of Roy Bhaskar. These are interesting for several reasons: they both draw on traditional ethical theories, although different ones; they bring in innovations of practical relevance; and they both share an over-arching critical perspective. After a critical introduction to both ethical theories, their similarities and differences are explored. The article ends by considering the extent to which they may be practically useful within business. (shrink)

The processing of sequences of (English) sentences is analyzedcompositionally through transitions that merge sentences, rather thandecomposing them. Transitions that are in a precise senseinertial are related to disjunctive and non-deterministic approaches toambiguity. Modal interpretations are investigated, inducing variousequivalences on sequences.

The article of Shestopalets D.V. deals with the construction of theological discourse in the publications of the Spirituals Administration of Muslims of Ukraine. Special attention is devoted to the topics that represent the “proper” image of Islam, the problem of orthodoxy, approaches to interpretation of the Quran and legitimization of the religious authority of Muslim scholars.

The range of issues related to the origins of Christianity, the formation of its doctrine, and its existence in the early, pre-Conciliar period has always been of concern not only to Christian scholars, not only to those scholars who were in one or another way involved in these researches, but also to society as a whole. However, in Ukraine, and especially in academic circles, these issues are still not sufficiently studied. The article examines the reasons that led the official Church (...) to change the key provisions of Christian doctrine, including ideological positions about "this world," narratives about war, and the commandments "thou shalt not kill" and "love your enemies." The author argues that the final rejection of the original evangelical pacifism occurred after the conquest of Christianity by Emperor Constantine the Great, when the Church was transformed into an institution of secular power, changing its original status as the "Kingdom of God" to belonging to the "Kingdom of Caesar." Since the reign of Constantine, Christianity has essentially existed divided into two camps. – the first, to which belong all those who profess the church doctrine in its new, "conciliar" and different from the original form and who, in particular, has rejected Jesus' original idea of renunciation of earthly things and, accordingly, the pacifism and anti-militarism he proclaimed; the second camp are those who remained faithful to the apostolic tradition and who continued to practice Christianity according to the original New Testament standard. The latter camp today includes mostly Protestants, including in Ukraine. However, with the onset of Russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine, their pacifist stance is changing. The solution of urgent socio-political issues and issues directly related to defense are increasingly leading Protestants in Ukraine to rethink their traditional pacifism, which may lead to a complete rejection of it in the future. The results obtained in the course of the study provide grounds to significantly adjust the current perceptions of Protestantism in Ukraine, in particular, its positive attitude to socio-political processes and active involvement in them. (shrink)

The processing of sequences of (English) sentences is analyzed compositionally through transitions that merge sentences, rather than decomposing them. Transitions that are in a precise sense inertial are related to disjunctive and non-deterministic approaches to ambiguity. Modal interpretations are investigated, inducing various equivalences on sequences.

Natural languages are riddled with context-sensitivity. One and the same string of words can express many different meanings on occasion of use, and yet we understand one another effortlessly, on the fly. How do we do so? What fixes the meaning of context-sensitive expressions, and how are we able to recover the meaning so effortlessly? -/- This book offers a novel response: we can do so because we draw on a broad array of subtle linguistic conventions that determine (...) the interpretation of context-sensitive items. Contrary to the dominant tradition, which maintains that the meaning of context-sensitive language is underspecified by grammar and that interpretation relies on non-linguistic cues and speakers' intentions, this book argues that meaning is determined entirely by discourse conventions, rules of language that have largely been missed and the effects of which have been mistaken for extra-linguistic effects of an utterance situation on meaning. The linguistic account of context developed here sheds new light on the nature of linguistic content and the interaction between content and context. At the same time, it provides a novel model of context that should constrain and help evaluate debates across many subfields of philosophy where appeal to context has been common, often leading to surprising conclusions such as epistemology, ethics, value theory, metaphysics, metaethics, and logic. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss how ritual is framed in the context of ayahuasca tourism, using ethnographic data collected in and around Iquitos, Peru. Alluding to a lack of socially sanctioned spaces for altered states of consciousness (ASCs) in western cultures, contemporary seekers flock to the Amazon to participate in ayahuasca ceremonies for an array of reasons, including healing and personal transformation. Taking Gregory Bateson's concept of “framing” as a point of departure, and applying Erving Goffman's frame analysis, I (...) will show that contemporary ayahuasca ceremonies attended by westerners are designed to be liminal, transformative, and meaningful experiences that aim to heal the body through emotional modulation. I will demonstrate how this is achieved through specific discourse that takes place before or during rituals in the form of long speeches delivered by the shamans. This framing not only separates the ritual space as liminal but also frames the way that the experience is conceptualized by the participants, ultimately increasing its meaningfulness. (shrink)

How to read Plutarch in the context of New Testament studies? Almost 50 years after the seminal project on the topic led by Hans Dieter Betz, this volume elevates once again the issue's priority. Bridging discourses is a fitting description both of the religio-philosophical spirit of Plutarch, the Platonist philosopher and priest of Apollo at Delphi, and the task of bringing his writings into fruitful dialogue with the writings of the New Testament, Hellenistic Judaism, and Early Christianity. Taken together, (...) these authors constitute the religious Platonism of the early imperial era. Contributions from the fields of New Testament, classics, philosophy, religious studies, and patristics explore various ways of how to establish these bridges. (shrink)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to foreground the importance of context in discourse analysis by drawing on a study of online gender talk on Facebook in India. Design/methodology/approach Using Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA), this study explored participants’ use of language to construct and perform various identities in online gender talk. This study discusses the methods used and challenges in analyzing digital spaces through FDA, focusing specifically on the importance of an ethnographic perspective to contextualize online (...) talk. Findings Engagement with the larger socio-cultural context of the subject of study through various data collection methods enhanced our understanding of the contexts behind text. It helped the authors to explore the data from multiple directions from a Foucauldian framework. This study found that people constructed a “progressive” identity when talking about gender on Facebook. Originality/value There are very few studies combining discourse analysis and digital ethnography and this paper seeks to do that. Digital ethnography helps to look beyond the text and locate text in the larger socio-cultural context. To emphasize the importance of context in discourse analysis, this study engages with both online and offline data as online talk is connected with offline contexts in many significant ways. In this paper, the authors provide a description on various methodological steps used to collect and analyze online data using FDA. (shrink)

Research has downplayed the complex discursive processes and practices through which decisions are constructed and blurs the relationship between macro- and micro-levels. The article argues for a critical and ecologically valid approach that articulates how discursive practices are influenced by, and in turn shape, the organizational settings in which they occur. It makes a methodological contribution using decision-making episodes of a senior management team meeting of a multinational company to demonstrate the insights that can be obtained from embedding the (...) class='Hi'>Discourse-Historical Approach to Critical Discourse Analysis within a longitudinal ethnography. The approach illuminates the latent and intricate power dynamics and range of potentials of agents, triangulating micro-level discursive strategies with macro-level historical sources and background knowledge on the social and political fields. The article also makes a theoretical contribution by demonstrating the dependency of decision outcomes on often unpredictable and subtle changes in the power—context relationship. (shrink)

The chapters in this volume study the construction, representation and negotiation of a variety of social roles through self- and other-reference markers or the discussion of reference as a tool for identification. The chapters uncover new insights both from a historical and present-day perspective and show how positioning the self and other varies, what kind of reference choices language users make and what follows from these choices. The data come from a variety of public texts, private encounters and questionnaires, and (...) the methodologies range from macro to micro perspectives, including combinations of qualitative close-reading and quantitative corpus methods, and synchronic and diachronic perspectives. The findings enhance our understanding and use of reference practices in the context of global, institutional, political and multicultural, as well as media texts. (shrink)

This research article was championed as a way of providing discourses pertaining to the concept of "Critical Realism (CR)" approach, which is amongst many othe forms of competing postmodern philosophical concepts for the engagement of dialogical discourses in the area of established econonetric methodologies for effective policy prescription in the economic science discipline. On the the whole, there is no doubt surrounding the value of empirical endeavours in econometrics to address real world economic problems, but equally so, the heavy weighted (...) use and reliance on mathematical contents as a way of justifying its scientific base seemed to be loosing traction of the intended focus of economics when it comes to confronting real world problems in the domain of social interaction. In this vein, the construction of mixed methods discourse(s), which favour that of CR philosophy is hereby suggested in this article as a way forward in confronting with issues raised by critics of mainstream economics and other professionals in the postmodern era. (shrink)

This paper revisits some foundational questions concerning the abstract representation of a discourse context. The context of a conversation is represented by a body of information that is presumed to be shared by the participants in the conversation – the information that the speaker presupposes a point at which a speech act is interpreted. This notion is designed to represent both the information on which context-dependent speech acts depend, and the situation that speech acts are designed (...) to affect, and so to be a representation of context that is appropriate for explaining the interaction of context and the contents expressed in them. After reviewing the motivating ideas and the outlines of the apparatus, the paper responds to a criticism of the framework, and considers the way it can help to clarify some phenomena concerning pronouns with indefinite antecedents. (shrink)

The societal and ethical implications of artificial intelligence (AI) have sparked discussions among academics, policymakers and the public around the world. What has gone unnoticed so far are the likewise vibrant discussions in China. We analyzed a large sample of discussions about AI ethics on two Chinese social media platforms. Findings suggest that participants were diverse, and included scholars, IT industry actors, journalists, and members of the general public. They addressed a broad range of concerns associated with the application of (...) AI in various fields. Some even gave recommendations on how to tackle these issues. We argue that these discussions are a valuable source for understanding the future trajectory of AI development in China as well as implications for global dialogue on AI governance. (shrink)

The relationships between text or talk and the context are among the basic fields of pragmatic research and an insight into their nature may contribute to a better understanding of language use. In this article, we use the results of an analysis of discourse marker use in two different conversational genres in an attempt to examine the impact of context on the use of discourse markers, generalized for each analysed genre. In the first stage of the (...) analysis, we observe important differences between the two genres: discourse markers are far more frequently used in telephone conversations than in television interviews. In the second stage of the analysis, we identify several contextual factors which contribute to the differences in the use of discourse markers. In this way, we obtain insight into this particular aspect of genre context-talk relationships, and identify some of the characteristics of the genres in question. (shrink)

It is no doubt that philosophy is the important way of discourse of modernity and modernity is the contemporary context of philosophy. By examining the relationship between philosophy and modernity, we will discover that philosophy enables the complete establishment of modernity, and philosophy is theimportant driving force of the gradual evolution of modernity; Contemporary philosophy is the outcome of the crisis of modernity; The important mission of the contemporary Chinese philosophy is to answer the question that how it (...) is possible to adopt modernity in China. (shrink)

Using birth stories as our object of inquiry, this article examines the ways in which normative discourses about gender, disability and Down syndrome construct the birth stories of three mothers of children with Down syndrome. Their stories are composed of the mothers’ recollections of the first hours after birth as a time when their infants are separated from them and their postpartum needs are ignored. Together, their stories illustrate socio-cultural tropes that position Down syndrome as a dangerous form of the (...) “other” and mothers who give birth to children with Down syndrome as implicated in transgressing cultural norms. (shrink)

The article considers the problem of the relations between modernity and secularization. The author argues that the discourse on secularization is the most appropriate strategy for modern self-understanding. The discourse itself is not homogeneous. One approach is a classical theory of secularization, which considers the secularization as a universal world-historical process, which passed the stages “modernization – secularization – rationalization.” Other approach is to interpret modern society as a post-secular society, but with relevance to religious ethos. This approach (...) considers Modernity as a unique social reality with a specific type of rationality and a set of behavioral strategies, which were formed as a result of the transformation of religious social reality, the center of which was a Christian myth. Accordingly, modernization becomes the result of secularization, and not vice versa, as the proponents of the first approach assumed. The thematization in the discourse on the secularization of a new type of society, which J. Habermas called post-secular society, demonstrates a crisis of principles constituting the Modernity’s foundations. Predictions of the epoch of an irreligious society did not come true, and secular reason is now forced to reckon with other types of rationality and take them into account, including in public space. This situation suggests that we are witnessing the birth of a new form of social reality. Thus, the article concludes: discourse on secularization is recognized as the most adequate strategy of the comprehension of Modernity; secularization should be viewed as a consistent detranscendentalization of Christian social reality; the emergence of a post-secular society indicates fundamental transformations in the field of the most general ideas about the nature of cultural mind and cultural identities. (shrink)

This paper argues that indexical reference is a species of discourse reference, just like anaphora. Both varieties of discourse reference involve not only context dependence, but also context change. The act of speaking up focuses attention and thereby makes this very speech event available for discourse reference by indexicals. Mentioning something likewise focuses attention, making the mentioned entity available for subsequent discourse reference by anaphors. Empirical evidence is presented from grammatical centering in Kalaallisut and (...) "shifty indexicals" in Slave attitude reports. (shrink)