Genre, Relevance and Global Coherence: The Pragmatics of Discourse Type Book

Acknowledgements     xii
Introduction     1
Genre in pragmatic theory     1
The notion of genre     4
The functions of genre     7
Relevance theory     10
Communication, code and inference     10
Cognition and relevance     13
Communication and relevance     15
The relevance-theoretic comprehension procedure     16
Overview of the book     20
Global Coherence and Genre
Global coherence and global discourse relations     25
Introduction     25
Samet and Schank (1984) on coherence     26
On the notion of global coherence     28
Global coherence relations     28
The purpose of global coherence relations     32
Causal relations, global coherence and time     34
Content-based causality relations and the cognitive concept of causality     35
A relevance-theoretic account of causal relations     39
Causality and time     42
Conclusion     45
Topic-based approaches to global coherence     46
Introduction     46
Global coherence as topic relevance     46
The quaestio approach     52
Questioning in discourse, topic, and discourse structure     56
Van Kuppevelt's theory of topic and discourse structure     56
A critical discussion of van Kuppevelt (1995a)     60
Conclusion     70
Global coherence and grounding in discourse     72
Introduction     72
Defining 'foreground'     73
Storyline and temporal succession     73
'Foreground' as forward movement in discourse     74
The foreground-background distinction as a taxonomy of linguistic markers     75
Grounding defined in pragmatic and psychological terms     77
Grounding as a scalar notion derived from several criteria     78
Grounding in discourse as a pragmatic principle     79
Foreground and topic-constituting implicit questions in discourse     85
Other approaches to grounding     90
Evaluation     96
Grounding in discourse and discourse type     97
Grounding scales, linguistic marking, and discourse type     97
Discourse type and the comment value of topic-constituting questions     102
Conclusion     103
Expectations of Relevance and Genre
Expectations of relevance     107
Introduction     107
Expectations of relevance and complex stimuli     107
Expectations of relevance and parallel processing     114
Expectations of relevance and attention     121
On inferring expectations of relevance     122
Expectations of relevance and connectivity in discourse     127
Summary and conclusion     142
Expectations of relevance, implicit questioning in discourse, and genre     143
Introduction     143
Implicit questioning in discourse and expectations of relevance     143
Conjunction, juxtaposition and implicit questioning     144
Implicit questioning, topic and focus     147
Implicit questioning in bridging reference     149
Question-based accounts of discourse structure     151
Expectations of relevance and the cognitive role of genre     155
Conclusion     172
Empirical issues in global coherence and text typology     174
Introduction     174
The interpretation and use of verb forms     175
Greek participial clauses     179
The interpretation of participial clauses in Koine Greek     179
On the pragmatics of participial clauses in Koine Greek     185
Anaphora     191
Anaphora in different genres      191
Anaphora, genre, and relevance     193
Conclusion     197
Genre in Inferential Theories of Communication
Genre in code-based theories of communication     201
Introduction     201
Register and context     201
Register and text typology     203
Genre     204
Evaluation and research questions     205
Genre in a non-cognitive account of communication     208
Genre and schematic structure     212
On register     215
Conclusion     222
Conversational maxims and genre     224
Genre in an inferential theory of communication     224
Discourse types and the universality of pragmatic maxims     225
Conversation types and conversational requirements     229
Quantity and volubility     230
Scalar implicatures and volubility     231
Conversational requirements     233
Scalar implicatures in relevance theory     234
A critical comparison of the three proposals     238
The scope of the proposals     238
The revised presumption of relevance and genre     242
Conversation types and requirements of talk exchanges     245
Genre in relevance theory     248
Conclusion     251
A re-analysis of genre and its implications for pragmatics     253
The role of genre in cognitive pragmatics     253
Genre and pragmatics     258
Global coherence and relevance     258
Expectations of relevance and the inferential theory of communication     260
Genre and discourse analysis     262
New questions     266
Notes     269
Bibliography     281
Index     301