IPRA panel on "Pragmatic aspects of discourse coherence"

[Gisela Redeker]

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  & Gisela Redeker  

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