Cover not available

In:Pragmatics and its Interfaces
Edited by Cornelia Ilie and Neal R. Norrick
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 294] 2018
► pp. 33–57

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

Discourse pragmatics

Communicative action meets discourse analysis

 | University of Augsburg, Germany
Published online: 7 September 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.294.03fet
Abstract
The multifaceted and multi-layered phenomenon of discourse has been examined in diverse research paradigms, concentrating on text as the object of investigation, on the connectedness between text and society, and on the representation of discourse. All approaches share the premise that discourse is a parts-whole configuration.
This chapter argues that interlocutors perform communicative action with discourse and in discourse, delimiting discourse from context on the one hand, and from arbitrarily concatenated discursive parts on the other. Their patterned linearisation is constrained by (1) the semantics and pragmatics of the constitutive discourse units, (2) the semantics and pragmatics of the joints, metaphorically speaking, and (3) the semantics and pragmatics of discourse-as-a-whole, demonstrating that the whole is always more than the sum of its constitutive parts. The argumentation is supported by discourse-analytic and pragmatic analyses of British political discourse, demonstrating where the two paradigms meet and where they depart.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Speech acts and higher-level illocutionary act types
    • 2.1Expositive as a higher-level illocutionary act type
    • 2.2Macro speech acts
  • 3.The structuring of discourse
    • 3.1Discourse unit and discursive glue
    • 3.2Discourse unit and sequentiality
  • 4.Doing things with words in discourse
  • Notes
  • References
References (54)
References
Aijmer, Karin. 1997. “I think – an English Modal Particle.” In Modality in Germanic Languages. Historical and Comparative Perspectives, ed. by Toril Swan, and Olaf Jansen, 1–47. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Asher, Nicolas, and Alex Lascarides. 2003. Logics of Conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Austin, John L. 1975. How to do Things with Words. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bach, Kent .1992. “Communicative Intentions, Plan Recognition, and Pragmatics: Comments on Thomason and Littman and Allen.” In Intentions in Communication, ed. by Philip Cohen, Jerry Morgan, and Martha E. Pollack, 389–400. Cambridge: MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson. 1987. Politeness. Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bublitz, Wolfram, Uta Lenk, and Eija Ventola (eds). 1999. Coherence in Spoken and Written Discourse. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chafe, Wallace. 1994. Discourse, Consciousness and Time. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cohen, Philip, Jerry Morgan, and Martha E. Pollack (eds). 1992. Intentions in Communication. Cambridge: MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Beaugrande Robert, and Dressler Wolfgang. 1981. Einführung in die Textlinguistik. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drew, Paul. (2018). “The Interface between Pragmatics and Conversation Analysis”. In Pragmatics and Its Interfaces, ed. by Cornelia Ilie, and Neal R. Norrick. 85–119, Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 1992. Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fetzer, Anita. 2000. “Negotiating Validity Claims in Political Interviews.” Text 20(4): 1–46. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. “Reformulation and Common Grounds.” In Lexical Markers of Common Grounds, ed. by Anita Fetzer, and Kerstin Fischer, 157–179. London: Elsevier.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. “’Here is the difference, here is the passion, here is the chance to be part of a great change’: Strategic Context Importation in Political Discourse”. In Context and Contexts: Parts Meet Whole?, ed. by Anita Fetzer, and Etsuko Oishi, 115–146. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. “Contexts in Interaction: Relating Pragmatic Wastebaskets.” In What is a Context? Linguistic Approaches and Challenges, ed. by Rita Finkbeiner, Jörg Meibauer, and Petra Schumacher, 105–127. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013a. “The Pragmatics of Discourse.” Topics in Linguistics 11: 5–12.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013b. “Structuring of Discourse.” In Handbooks of Pragmatics. The Pragmatics of Speech Actions. Vol . 2, ed. by Marina Sbisà, and Ken Turner, 685–711. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fetzer, Anita, Elda Weizman, and Laurence N. Berlin (eds). 2015. The Dynamics of Political Discourse: Forms and Functions of Follow-Ups. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gernsbacher, Morton-Ann, and Talmy Givón (eds). 1995. Coherence in Spontaneous Text, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grice, Herbert Paul. 1975. “Logic and Conversation.” In Syntax and Semantics. Vol. III, ed. by Peter Cole, and Jerry L. Morgan, 41–58. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gruber, Helmut. and Gisela Redeker (eds). 2014. The Pragmatics of Discourse Coherence. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gumperz, John J.1992. “Contextualization and Understanding.” In Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon, ed. by Alessandro Duranti, and Charles Goodwin, 229–252. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1996. “The Linguistic and Cultural Relativity of Inference.” In Rethinking Linguistic Relativity, ed. by John J. Gumperz, and Stephen C. Levinson, 374–406. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A. K. 1994. Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Arnold.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael, and Ruqaiya Hasan. 1987. Cohesion in English. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heritage, John. 1984. Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ilie, Cornelia. (2018). “Pragmatics vs Rhetoric: Political discourse at the Pragmatics-Rhetoric Interface”. In Pragmatics and Its Interfaces, ed. by Cornelia Ilie, and Neal R. Norrick. 85–119, Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, William, and David Fanshel. 1977. Therapeutic Discourse. Psychotherapy as Conversation. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen C. 1979. “Activity Types and Language.” Linguistics 17: 365–399. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1995. “Interactional Bias in Human Thinking.” In Social Intelligence and Interaction, ed. by Esther Goody, 221–260. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Linell, Per. 1998. Approaching Dialogue. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maier, Robert M., Carolin Hofmockel, and Anita Fetzer. 2016. “The Negotiation of Discourse Relations in Context: Co-Constructing Degrees of Overtness.” Intercultural Pragmatics 13(1): 71–105. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marmaridou, Sophia. 2000. Pragmatic Meaning and Cognition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martin, Jim R., and David Rose. 2008. Genre Relations. Mapping Culture. London: Equinox. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mey, Jacob. 2001. Pragmatics. An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2011. “Speech Acts in Context.” In Context and Contexts: Parts meet Whole?, ed. by Anita Fetzer and Etsuko Oishi, 171–180. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moeschler, Jacques. 2002. “Speech Act Theory and the Analysis of Conversations.” In Essays in Speech Act Theory, ed. by Daniel Vanderveken, and Susumu Kubo, 239–261. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oishi, Etsuko and Fetzer, Anita. 2016. “Expositives in Discourse.” Journal of Pragmatics 96: 49–59. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Roulet, Eddy. 2006. “The Description of Text Relation Markers in the Geneva Model of Discourse Organization.” In Approaches to Discourse Particles, ed. by Kerstin Fischer, 115– 132. Oxford: Elsevier.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sarangi, Srikant. 2000. “Activity Types, Discourse Types and Interactional Hybridity: The Case of Genetic Counseling.” In Discourse and Social Life, ed. by Srikant Sarangi, and Malcolm Coulthard, 1–27. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sbisà, Marina. 2002. “Cognition and Narrativity in Speech Act Sequences.” In Rethinking Sequentiality: Linguistics meets Conversational Interaction, ed. by Anita Fetzer, and Christiane Meierkord, 71–97. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schiffrin, Deborah. 1987. Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Searle, John R. 1983. Intentionality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Searle, John. 2010. Making the Social World: The Structure of Human Civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thibault, Paul J. 2003. “Contextualization and Social Meaning-Making Practices.” In Language and Interaction. Discussions with John J. Gumperz, ed. by Susan L. Eerdmans et al., 41–62. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 1988. Approaches to Grammaticalization. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trosborg, Anna. 1995. Interlanguage Pragmatics. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Dijk, Teun. 1980. Macrostructures. Hillsdale, NJ: Earlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. Discourse and Context. A Sociocognitive Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Widdowson, Henry. 2004. Text, Context, and Pretext. Critical Issues in Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yule, George. 1996. The Study of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (15)

Cited by 15 other publications

Lumosi, Lucy Adamba, Reginald Alati Atichi & Lucy Mandilla
2025. A pragmatic analysis of the discursive strategies used in Mwalimu Andrew's staffroom diary texts. SCIENCE MUNDI 5:2 ► pp. 202 ff. DOI logo
Berthe, Florine, Anita Fetzer & Isabelle Gaudy-Campbell
2024. ‘What we found is’. Functions of Language 31:2 ► pp. 142 ff. DOI logo
Fetzer, Anita & Matthias Klumm
2023. The linguistic realization of continuative discourse relations in English discourse. Functions of Language 30:1 ► pp. 16 ff. DOI logo
Fetzer, Anita
2021. Computer-mediated discourse in context. In Approaches to Internet Pragmatics [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 318], ► pp. 47 ff. DOI logo
Fetzer, Anita
2022. Doing things with discourse in the mediated political arena. Pragmatics and Society 13:5 ► pp. 769 ff. DOI logo
Fetzer, Anita & Iwona Witczak-Plisiecka
2021. Argumentative, Political and Legal Discourse. In The Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics, ► pp. 520 ff. DOI logo
Xie, Chaoqun, Francisco Yus & Hartmut Haberland
2021. Introduction. In Approaches to Internet Pragmatics [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 318], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Drew, Paul
2018. The interface between pragmatics and conversation analysis. In Pragmatics and its Interfaces [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 294], ► pp. 59 ff. DOI logo
Haugh, Michael & Jonathan Culpeper
2018. Integrative pragmatics and (im)politeness theory. In Pragmatics and its Interfaces [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 294], ► pp. 213 ff. DOI logo
House, Juliane
2018. Translation studies and pragmatics. In Pragmatics and its Interfaces [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 294], ► pp. 143 ff. DOI logo
Ilie, Cornelia
2018. Pragmatics vs rhetoric. In Pragmatics and its Interfaces [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 294], ► pp. 85 ff. DOI logo
Norrick, Neal R.
2018. Narrative studies versus pragmatics (of narrative). In Pragmatics and its Interfaces [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 294], ► pp. 121 ff. DOI logo
Pereira, Gerardine M.
2018. The interface between pragmatics and gesture studies. In Pragmatics and its Interfaces [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 294], ► pp. 163 ff. DOI logo
Yus, Francisco
2018. The interface between pragmatics and internet-mediated communication. In Pragmatics and its Interfaces [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 294], ► pp. 267 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2021. Topics and Settings in Sociopragmatics. In The Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics, ► pp. 247 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 28 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue