Text, Context, Pretext: Critical Issues in Discourse Analysis (Language in Society) Book

This fascinating examination of the relations between grammar, text, and discourse is designed to provoke genuinely critical discussion on key issues in discourse analysis that are not always clearly identified and examined. The inquiry into discourse analysis that Zellig Harris initiated 50 years ago raised a number of problematic issues that have remained unresolved since. The main question they all concern is the relationship between the analysis of the formal properties of text and the significance that is assigned to them in discourse interpretation. This book explores this relationship and introduces the notion of pretext as an additional factor in the general interpretative process. It also focuses attention specifically on the work of critical discourse analysis (CDA) in light of the issues discussed. Particular examples of analysis are subjected to scrutiny, and questions are raised as to how far the interpretations assigned are warranted by the analytic findings. This leads to a more general appraisal of the validity and coherence of the principles and practices of CDA. The result is a stimulating volume that makes explicit the distinctions between the key concepts of text and discourse, and between context, co-text, and pretext. It shows how they are related, providing a theoretical frame of reference for evaluating the work of critical discourse analysis.Read More