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International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Modeling and Using Context

CONTEXT 2017: Modeling and Using Context pp 527–540Cite as

Contextualising Contrastive Discourse Relations: Evidence from Single-Authored and Co-constructed Texts

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 10257))

Abstract

This paper compares the linguistic realisation of contrastive discourse relations in single-authored and co-constructed texts produced in an experimental setting in which participants were asked to produce a well-formed argumentative text based on a skeleton text reduced to minimal propositional information while still containing the original argumentative sequential organisation and default configuration of events. The goal was to understand the role of context – linguistic context (or: co-text) and social context - in discourse production, in discourse processing and in the construal of discourse coherence. The study is methodologically compositional across functional approaches to discourse grammar, discourse representation, and discourse pragmatics. The results of the experiment show that co-constructed and single-authored texts utilise a pool of contrastive discourse connectives with the single-authored texts additionally referring to and entextualising linguistic and social context, embedding contrastive contributions accordingly.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In discourse pragmatics, entextualisation refers to assigning unbounded context the status of a bounded object, for instance by narrowing down the referential domain of an indexical expression (here) to a bounded referential domain (here in Paris). The use promoted here differs from Park and Bucholtz (2009), who define entextualisation primarily in terms of institutional control and ideology. It shares their stance of approaching entextualisation in terms of “conditions inherent in the transposition of discourse from one context into another” (2009: 489), while considering not only global, but also local context.

  2. 2.

    Ducrot (1984) and Anscombre and Ducrot (1983) argue for internal and external perspectives on argumentation as internal and external dialogue, as is reflected in argumentative moves, e.g., claim, warrant or backing, and argumentative operators, e.g. but, since, because, although and thus.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Augsburg, Augsburg, Germany

    Anita Fetzer

Authors
  1. Anita Fetzer
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anita Fetzer .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Pierre and Marie Curie University , Paris, France

    Patrick Brézillon

  2. University of Maine , Orono, Maine, USA

    Roy Turner

  3. University of Genoa , Genoa, Italy

    Carlo Penco

Appendix

Appendix

Argumentative Skeleton Text and Instructions

The following 15 clauses form the backbone of a commentary from the Guardian. You may add or delete any linguistic material which you consider necessary to transform the current text into a well-formed coherent whole, but you may not change the order of the given clauses.

The solitary monoglots

  1. 1.

    the British seem set on isolation from the world

  2. 2.

    London was a dowdy place of tea-houses and stale rock cakes

  3. 3.

    it’s much more exciting

  4. 4.

    I can hear people speaking in all the languages of the world

  5. 5.

    was that Pashto or Hindi

  6. 6.

    I can just about differentiate Polish from Lithuanian

  7. 7.

    I delight in hearing them mingled with snatches of French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese…

  8. 8.

    London has become the capital of linguistic diversity

  9. 9.

    one important group seems to be leaving itself out

  10. 10.

    students

  11. 11.

    foreign language learning at Britain’s schools has been in decline for decades

  12. 12.

    the number of universities offering degrees in modern languages has plummeted

  13. 13.

    an inquiry is under way

  14. 14.

    the number of teenagers taking traditional modern foreign languages at A-level fell to its lowest level since the mid-90 s

  15. 15.

    it’s a paradox

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Fetzer, A. (2017). Contextualising Contrastive Discourse Relations: Evidence from Single-Authored and Co-constructed Texts. In: Brézillon, P., Turner, R., Penco, C. (eds) Modeling and Using Context. CONTEXT 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10257. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57837-8_43

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57837-8_43

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-57836-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-57837-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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