Discourse and Communicative Interaction
DISCI 2016
Discourse, one of the most elusive terms, is often related (or opposed) to text. Some authors use the two terms interchangeably, while others use them to differentiate spoken from written communication. Discourse is often used to refer to the interactive aspects of linguistic events, whether intended to be spoken aloud or not. Some researchers consider that the difference between discourse and text is that between process and product. Starting from this dichotomy, a distinction is drawn between two approaches to language: a) the text-as-product view, a static concept of language; b) the discourse-as-process view, which describes linguistic form not as a static entity, but as a dynamic means of expressing intended meaning. Although such distinctions are often ambiguous and confusing, we can conclude that discourse is language in action, focusing upon the interactive aspect of linguistic events. The manifold phenomena described at the level of discourse are those that arise when more than one participant is involved in creating meaningful linguistic structures and when the activity is supposed to be purposeful.
The main purpose of this conference is to decipher the multiple valences of the term discourse and its relationship with interaction in the process of communication, based on inter- and multidisciplinary methods of analysis.