IPRA panel on "Pragmatic aspects of discoures coherence"

[Helmut Gruber]

Dear list members,

This is a call for abstracts for a panel on “Pragmatic aspects of discourse coherence” which will be organized during the 12th International Pragmatics conference in Manchester (July, 3rd – 8th, 2011) by Helmut Gruber (Vienna) and Gisela Redeker (Groningen):

 

Pragmatic aspects of discourse coherence

 

Organizers: Helmut Gruber (Vienna) & Gisela Redeker (Groningen)

 

Investigations of discourse coherence have played an important role in discourse research for at least the last three decades. Within this research tradition, the investigation of coherence relations has lead to the proposal of various coherence models which view coherence as the result of an interplay between textual clues, (analysts' assumptions of) writers'/ speakers' intentions, cognitive,  situational, rhetorical and/ or generic constraints etc. (Asher & Lascarides, 2003; Spooren & Sanders, 2008; Taboada & Mann, 2006a, 2006b). 

     Despite the long tradition of coherence research, there is still disagreement concerning basic questions such the relationship between generic structures and coherence structures (to which extent do they depend on each other or are they independent of each other?), the relation between signals of surface cohesion (e.g. theme-rheme structures, lexical cohesion) and "underlying" coherence structures, the signaling of coherence structures on different text/ discourse levels (global vs. local coherence), etc. 

In addition, the emergence of new genres in the new media and the possibility of combining different semiotic modes in hypertexts calls for new approaches that also take into account coherence relations between different modes of discourse such as coherence between visual and verbal elements of texts (see Bateman, 2008) or coherence between sound, film sequences, and verbal and textual elements (Huemer, 2010). 

     The proposed panel aims at bringing together researchers from different approaches to relational coherence, in order to present and discuss their recent research. We envisage two 90-minute sessions with three presentations each and room for discussion. One of the sessions will focus specifically on multimodality.

 

Presentations are invited on the following topics:

·         coherence, cohesion, and genre

·         signalling of coherence relations

·         coherence in multimodal discourse

 

Important dates:

Sept. 1, 2010      send abstracts (500 words) to Helmut Gruber <mailto:helmut.k.gruber at univie.ac.at> 

Oct. 1, 2010        notification of acceptance/rejection

Oct. 29, 2010      authors must have submitted their abstracts to IPrA (n.b.: IPrA membership required!)

July 3-8, 2011     IPrA Conference, Manchester

 

References

Asher, Nicholas, & Lascarides, Alex (2003). Logics of conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bateman, John A. (2008). Multimodality and Genre: a foundation for the systematic analysis of multimodal documents. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Huemer, Birgit (2010). Semiotik der digitalen Medienkunst: Eine funktionale Kunstbetrachtung. Unpublished PhD, Vienna University, Vienna.

Spooren, W., & Sanders, T. (2008). The acquisition order of coherence relations: On cognitive complexity in discourse. Journal of Pragmatics, 40(12), 2003-2026.

Taboada, Maite, & Mann, William (2006a). Applications of Rhetorical Structure Theory. Discourse Studies, 8, 567-588 

Taboada, Maite, & Mann, William (2006b). Rhetorical Structure Theory: looking back and moving ahead. Discourse Studies, 8, 429-459.

 

Best regards,

Helmut Gruber

________________________________________

Institut f. Sprachwissenschaft

Universität Wien

Berggasse 11

A-1090 Wien

Tel.: +43/1/4277-41722

Fax: +43/1/4277-9417

 <http://www.univie.ac.at/linguistics/personal/helmut/> http://www.univie.ac.at/linguistics/personal/helmut/

 

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