چکیده:
In this paper, it is argued that Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) should be extended to also include what may be called Critical Context Studies (CCS). After a summary of the new theory of context, defined in terms of special mental models in episodic memory, subjectively representing the ‘definition of the communicative situation’ by the participants, it is argued how a critical analysis of text-context relationships is fundamental for CDS. The focus of CDS on power and domination presupposes the relevance of the ways social contexts are defined by the participants, and how such social context may influence text and talk. This theoretical paper is illustrated by a detailed analysis of fragments from a debate of 2004 held in the British House of Commons on the Hutton Report, which deals with the aftermath of the media coverage of the war in Iraq.
خلاصه ماشینی:
After a summary of the new theory of context, defined in terms of special mental models in episodic memory, subjectively representing the 'definition of the communicative situation' by the participants, it is argued how a critical analysis of text-context relationships is fundamental for CDS.
Since the early CDS books of the end of the 1970s and 1980s (such as Fairclough, 1989; Van Dijk, 1984, 1987, 1988, Wodak, 1989), thousands of critical studies of text and talk have been published, among which hundreds of books, in many countries and many languages, using many methods or approaches, ranging from detailed conversation analysis, to analysis of rhetoric, style, narrative, argumentation, topics, pronouns, politeness formula, speech acts, and so on.
In linguistics and discourse analysis, the term 'context' more specifically refers to surrounding words, sentences, text or talk of a given linguistic structure, on the one hand, or with the social situation, event or encounter in which language is being used, on the other hand (see, e.
Thus, in discourse studies when we deal with the context of conversation, we intuitively rather think of the participants and their relevant social roles and of how setting aspects, such as properties of place or timing may influence talk.
These few examples suggest that a sound critical study of discourse cannot be limited to a study of the structures of text and talk in isolation, and necessarily needs to relate these to relevant aspects of the social situation as it is represented by participants in their context models.