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Discourse Interpretation: Approaches and Applications
Editor: Olga Dontcheva-Navratilova and Renata Povolná
Date Of Publication: Mar 2012
Isbn13: 978-1-4438-3632-6
Isbn: 1-4438-3632-X
Discourse Interpretation: Approaches and Applications provides new insights into the complex area of discourse interpretation in a wide range of discourse types and genres. The authors adopt a variety of approaches to the representation and interpretation of meaning in discourse to share the understanding that discourse interpretation is a dynamic construct constantly open to reinterpretation in the light of the intentions and purposes of in particular social, historical and situational contexts.

The chapters of the book comprise essays by linguists working in the fields of (critical) discourse analysis, pragmatics, stylistics and sociolinguistics which address methodological issues in discourse interpretation (Part I) and explore various aspects of representation and interpretation of meaning in different genres of spoken and written discourse, namely conversational, academic, media, political and fictional discourse (Part II).

This volume, which combines theoretical insights with empirical investigations, contributes to a better understanding of the interpretative process and will be of interest to a wide range of researchers, scholars and students of English.

Olga Dontcheva-Navratilova is Assistant Professor of English Linguistics at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. She specializes in discourse analysis, stylistics and pragmatics, with a focus on political and academic discourse. She has published many articles on topics related to her research interests and is the author of Analysing Genre: The Colony Text of UNESCO Resolutions (2009), in which she analyses the distinctive features of the colony text type as represented in the genre of resolutions, and Coherence in Political Speeches (2011), in which she explores the interplay of topical, evaluative and textual coherence in political discourse. She is co-editor of Coherence and Cohesion in Spoken and Written Discourse (2009), published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, and of the linguistics journal Discourse and Interaction. She is involved in the research project Coherence and Cohesion in English Discourse, the aim of which is to conceptualize coherence and cohesion as constitutive components of human communication and to explore features and strategies enhancing the perception of coherence and cohesion in different genres of spoken and written discourse.

Renata Povolná is Associate Professor of English Linguistics at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. Her research interests lie in the areas of discourse analysis, pragmatics and conversation analysis, focusing on coherence, cohesion and discourse markers in academic spoken as well as written discourse. She has published many articles on topics related to her research interests and is the author of Spatial and Temporal Adverbials in English Authentic Face-to-Face Conversation (2003), in which she explores the role of spatial and temporal adverbials in face-to-face conversation, and Interactive Discourse Markers in Spoken English (2010), in which she investigates the pragmatic functions clausal forms such as “you know,” “you see” and “I mean” can perform in spoken discourse. She is co-editor of Coherence and Cohesion in Spoken and Written Discourse (2009), published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, and of the linguistics journal Discourse and Interaction. She is involved in the research project Coherence and Cohesion in English Discourse, which studies the conceptualization of coherence and cohesion as constitutive components of human communication and the application of theoretical insights in the analysis of spoken and written discourse.

“Dontcheva-Navratilova and Povolna’s collection is an informative and well-structured contribution to the complex area of studies in discourse representation and interpretation. Combining theoretical (Part I) and empirical (Part II) insights from authors working at the intersection of critical linguistics, socio-pragmatics and stylistics, it offers tools to scrutinize many of the central questions in this heterogeneous and challenging field.”

—Piotr Cap, University of Łódź

“This volume focuses on discourse interpretation in very different discourses. Apart from the two introductory more theoretical chapters, this volume provides a wealth of empirical examples and analyses. The genres discussed range from political texts (like political advertising or opening addresses of conferences) to academic genres (like research articles and social-science textbooks), journalistic writing (like crime reports and life-style magazines), and interpersonal texts (like complements and short stories). This remarkable spread proves that new discourse pragmatic concepts can be fruitfully applied to many domains. It makes this volume interesting to many readers in all subdisciplines of English, either to catch up with latest empirical research or to gain inspiration for further work in the modern analysis of discourse. This collection is therefore highly welcome.”

—Josef Schmied, Chemnitz University of Technology

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