Genre, Relevance and Global Coherence: The Pragmatics of Discourse Type / Edition 1

by C. Unger

Overview

This book seeks to explain how discourse types influence the addressee's understanding of the communicator's intention. Examining global coherence-based accounts as well as proposals based on Gricean pragmatics, it argues that the key to a solution lies in the cognitive and communicative principles of relevance proposed by Sperber & Wilson.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781403985330
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	11/28/2006
Series:	Palgrave Studies in Pragmatics, Language and Cognition
Edition description:	2006
Pages:	308
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.03(d)

About the Author

CHRISTOPH UNGER has been working with SIL International since 1992 on linguistic fieldwork and the training and supervision of translators. His research focuses on pragmatic theory and its implications for natural language semantics and cross-cultural communication, particularly translation.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Introduction PART 1: GLOBAL COHERENCE AND GENRE Global Coherence and Global Discourse Relations Topic-based Approaches to Global Coherence Global Coherence and Grounding In Discourse PART 2: EXPECTATIONS OF RELEVANCE AND GENRE Expectations of Relevance Expectations of Relevance, Implicit Questioning in Discourse, and Genre Empirical Issues in Global Coherence and Discourse Typology Genre in Code-based Theories of Communication Conversational Maxims and Genre A Re-analysis of Genre and its Implications for Pragmatics Notes Bibliography Index

Editorial Reviews

'This book has thrown a challenge out to linguistics: can any one theory account for the many-faceted nature of a text? Each chapter has been treated with significant depth to explain the author's thesis, to produce a book whose importance extends beyond the specific issues under scrutiny this book is an excellent contribution to scholarship in terms of the global coherence of text interpretation using GT and RT and the hypothesis of the cognitive pragmatic function of genre by Unger opens up many and varied research areas.'

Philippa Mungra, University of Rome, Italy, writing on LINGUIST List

From the Publisher