This contribution aims to outline some limits of discourse analysis today. Discourse analysis may not privilege any specific kind of data, but, like modern linguistics since the beginning of the 20th century, most discourse analysts focus on a restricted area within the manifold manifestations of discourse. They take for granted that discourse must be modeled after conversational practices, and/or that the basic relevant unit of discourse analysis is the pair text/genre. This restriction can be explained by the historical context in which discursive approaches have emerged. However, it can be argued that such a standard is not relevant for a wide range of data, that discourse practices can be divided into various regimes, which correspond to various models of communication and must accordingly be analyzed with specific concepts and toolkits. This article discusses two main phenomena that call this standard into question: (1) the notion of genre on the Internet; (2) “textless sentences” and authorship. Indeed, these all imply another conception of discourse activity that deserves to be taken into account if we are to consider discourse activity in the full diversity of its manifestations.

Problèmes de linguistique générale

The heterogeneity of discourse: expanding the field of discourse analysis

The objective in the present paper is to analyze the aspect of subjectivity having to do with construing motion and change where no motion and change exists outside the representation, that is, in cases where the conceptualizer does not intend to convey the idea that these properties exist in the state of affairs described. In the process of doing so, I will elaborate on a critique of the notion of fictivity as it is currently being used in cognitive linguistics.

Subjectivity in the act of representing: The case for subjective motion and change

background

Is 'the First Person' a linguistic concept essentially?

This article first outlines the theory of the predicative and enunciative operations (TOPE) developed by Antoine Culioli and his associates. It then shows how this theory enables one to analyse such linguistic units as the verbal prefix z- in Ikwere, spoken in Nigeria, and, more precisely, the way they operate in the language. We find that behind the various uses of z- is an invariant meaning element which consists of introducing a ranking between p and p′, i.e., two constituent values of a given unorganized notional domain, such that the domain is finally organized. It is further argued that the TAM (Tense-Aspect-Modality) category, which z- is related to, is constructed by the utterance in which z- occurs.

Semantic invariance, locating process and alterity: a TOPE-based analysis of the verbal prefix z - in Ikwere

The general attention to discourse analysis developed in the 1970s has found applications in translation theory in the 1980s and into the 1990s. However, a survey of the linguistic approaches concemed shows that many kinds of analysis are inappropriate to the study of translation quite simply because they cannot say if a source text and a target text can or should belong to the same discourse. That is, most theories cannot describe the limits of any particular discourse within or across different tongues. A more pertinent approach is to define discourse as a set of constraints on semiosis, and then use this defmition to recognise translation as a possible index of intercultural discursive constraints.

https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/91779.pdf

Limits and Frustrations of Discourse Analysis in Traslation Theory

Communication using symbols (such as words) structured with grammar

Problèmes de linguistique générale

Citations

The heterogeneity of discourse: expanding the field of discourse analysis

Subjectivity in the act of representing: The case for subjective motion and change

Is 'the First Person' a linguistic concept essentially?

Semantic invariance, locating process and alterity: a TOPE-based analysis of the verbal prefix z - in Ikwere

Limits and Frustrations of Discourse Analysis in Traslation Theory

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