Aspects Of Discourse Analysis

Aspects of discourse analysis

Discourse Analysis

Discourse Analysis provides an essential and practical introduction for students studying modules on the analysis of language in use. It explores the ways in which language is used and organised in written and spoken texts to generate meanings and takes into account the social contexts of production, and the social roles and identities of those involved. Investigating the ways in which language varies according to subject, social setting, and communicative purpose, this book examines various forms of speaking and writing, including casual conversation, speeches, parliamentary debate, computer-mediated communication, and mass media articles. It discusses topics including how we convey more than we actually say or write, the role of politeness and impoliteness in communication, and what makes texts cohesive and coherent. It also shows how particular aspects of discourse analysis can be assisted by corpus methods and tools. Taking students through a step-by-step guide on how to do discourse analysis that includes the collection of data and presentation of results, the book also documents a text analysis project from start to finish. Featuring a range of examples and interactive activities, as well as additional online support material, this book is key reading for those studying discourse analysis modules.

Formal Aspects of Context

The First International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Modelling and Using Context, Rio de Janeiro, January 1997, gave rise to the present book, which contains a selection of the papers presented there, thoroughly refereed and revised. The treatment of contexts as bona fide objects of logical formalisation has gained wide acceptance, following the seminal impetus given by McCarthy in his Turing Award address. The field of natural language offers a particularly rich variety of examples and challenges to researchers concerned with the formal modelling of context, and several chapters in the volume deal with contextualisation in the setting of natural language. Others adopt a purely formal-logical viewpoint, seeking to develop general models of even wider applicability. The 12 chapters are organised in three groups: formalisation of contextual information in natural language understanding and generation, the application of context in mechanised reasoning domains, and novel non-classical logics for contextual application.