Jezikoslovlje, Vol. 5 No. 1-2, 2004.
Izvorni znanstveni članak
Discourse analysis and determination in the light of subjectification theory
Piotr Cap
; University of of Lódz, Department of Linguistic Pragmatics
Sažetak
The present paper bridges considerations characteristic of the domains of
linguistic pragmatics, discourse analysis, as well as of cognitive linguistics
and social psychology. It is claimed that, in specialist discourse analysis, a
given discourse type is as such analytic determinant, i.e. one that dictates its
own methods of investigation. These methods display a “more-bottom-up”
or a “more-top-down” orientation (cf. Beaugrande 1997), depending on what
kind of discourse is investigated. It is argued that certain discourse types
which “include” the analyst (that is, where the analyst is part of depicted
events or part of discourse audience) or are more “familiar” to him/her generate
observations on their function and structure at a relatively early stage
of their componential analysis, or even before it takes place. Once the global
function of the text has been presupposed, the analysis proceeds “top-down”,
i.e. toward all micro-data chunks supportive of the initial hypothesis. This
happens, for instance, in the case of the discourse of advertising (cf. studies
by Lutz 1990, Myers 1994; Goddard 1998, and many others). On the other
hand, discourse analyses pursued in a “bottom-up” manner seem to result
from an analyst having insufficient extralinguistic knowledge to postulate a
priori claims about the text and its function. This constraint concerns analysts
not being part of the reality investigated and, more often than not, undertaking
a diachronic study or a study of highly-metaphoric discourse. The
primary objective of the paper is to postulate, on the basis of investigation
into a couple of different discourse types (language of politics and the media,
advertising, and scientific argument), about the degree of analytic determinism
pertaining to a given kind of text. In other words, it is to indicate
which discourse types invite (or even dictate) which of the analytic approaches
(i.e. “top-down” and “bottom-up”). The secondary goal is to suggest
that the analysis of discourse determination can further benefit from the
application of concepts which are normally part of Cognitive Grammar (CG)
apparatus. It will be shown that CG can substantially contribute toward
specification of the distance that holds between the analyst and the investigated discourse. Addressed here will be Langacker’s concept of subjectification
(cf. Langacker 1990b, 1999) and its relevance to considerations of the
analyst’s status in discourse.
Ključne riječi
analytic conceptualization; deductive analysis; discourse determination; discourse of advertising; inductive analysis; political discourse; pragmaticcognitive interface; scientific discourse; subjectification
Hrčak ID:
30918
URI
Datum izdavanja:
17.12.2004.
Posjeta: 3.668 *