Society and Discourse: How Social Contexts Influence Text and Talk

Van Dijk presents a new theory of context that explains how text and talk are adapted to their social environment. He argues that instead of the usual direct relationship being established between society and discourse, this influence is indirect and depends on how language users themselves define the communicative situation. The new concept van Dijk introduces for such definitions is that of context models. These models control all language production and understanding and explain how discourse is made appropriate in each situation. They are the missing link between language and society so far ignored in pragmatics and sociolinguistics. In this interdisciplinary book, the new theory of context is developed by examining the analysis of the structure of social situations in social psychology and sociology and their cultural variation in anthropology. The theory is applied to the domain of politics, including the debate about the war in Iraq, where political leaders’ speeches serve as a case study for detailed contextual analysis.

In another book published by Cambridge University Press, Discourse and Context, Teun A. van Dijk presents the (socio)linguistic and cognitive foundations of this multidisciplinary theory of context and the way context influences language use and discourse.