Discourse as Structure and Process

by Teun A. van Dijk (Editor)

What are the structures of discourse and what are the functions of these structures in the communicative context? This volume explains how and why discourse is organized at various levels. The multidisciplinary contributions illustrate that discourse analysis goes far beyond the linguistic answer of designing grammars and goes hand in hand with the study of their uses and functions in the social context. Comprehensive and accessible, the volume covers a huge variety of discourse genres, including written and spoken, and storytelling and argumentation. The chapters also illustrate the necessity to examine the mental processes of the language How do people go about producing, understanding and remembering text or talk?

Genres: Linguistics, Nonfiction, Philosophy

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Teun Adrianus van Dijk, is a scholar in the fields of text linguistics, discourse analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis. With Walter Kintsch he contributed to the development of the psychology of text processing.

Reviews

[Daniel Clemence · Rating 4 out of 5]

A highly in depth book that looks over the structures of discourse and teaches the reader how discourse happens within a context. One thing that the reader will learn early is that the interpretation is found within the text, given in the variance in interpretation. Language is this negotiable within a dialectic relation (page 20). Thus this book seeks to show meaning found within language and how this is projected (page 8-9).

As a book, it is highly complex and would be suitable for those from a university educated background either those who are interested in discourse or language and linguistics.

One of the things that is highlighted early is the innate social construction of language in how it structures power and values for the group. Language becomes part of the social constraints and cultural capital (page 45). Language becomes a part of power structure (page 42), deliberately structuring society towards hierarchy (page 51). The social contexts and crises that social discourse operates in becomes part of its future (page 59).

Theme and topic becomes an essential part of discourse (page 86-87) . In this, dialectics is meaning in which the speaker is putting forward which is a conceptual representation of the subject matter (page 68). Excellent ideas indeed, although this book is not really suitable for laypeople.

I highly enjoyed this book but found it a challenge to read.

[Guillermo · Rating 4 out of 5]

En la Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios del Discurso escribí una reseña en español de este libro. Puede consultarse en https://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/r...

I wrote a review of this book in Spanish in the Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios del Discurso. It is available at https://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/r...