Book review: John Flowerdew (ed.),Discourse in Context

The analysis of discourse in its context of use requires adequate descriptions of the contexts which may influence discourse at both the production and the interpretation stages, as well as descriptions of the mechanisms by which these influences are enacted. The ways in which contexts may be said to influence and constrain text and talk require more careful attention in order to avoid making unfounded claims about the power of context to influence discourse.

Answering this need for descriptions of context–discourse relations is the chief aim of Discourse in Context. While context may be addressed within the bounds of a single interdisciplinary theory, as in Van Dijk’s work, this book offers a wide array of theoretical approaches and methodologies, demonstrated in empirical studies. Theoretical approaches used here include systemic-functional linguistics, cognitive linguistics, geosemiotics, and multimodal semiotics, among others. Each of the 15 chapters offers its own interesting and relevant contribution to the description of context.

The studies convincingly demonstrate that contextual influences cannot be ignored. Cotterill’s study of criminal trial discourse usefully examines how the strict formality of courtroom procedures, the high stakes of the trials in question, and the highly unequal power relations between participants exert great influence on how lawyers and witnesses speak. Bednarek’s chapter offers testable hypotheses – a much-needed contribution in this field – of the discourse functions of questions in television dialogue, which may be constrained by public ideologies as well as plot requirements. Gunnarsson’s chapter argues quite logically, from evidence in public documents, that multinational companies’ online self-presentations may be interpreted as influenced by both internal company needs and public and legal pressures, for example when an oil company presents itself as environmentally responsible. Identifying multiple contextual pressures is important in order to avoid deterministic or overly simple contextual analyses.

Large-scale data prove quite useful in identifying relevant contextual and discourse features which may be over- or under-interpreted in smaller studies. Corpus linguistics (Baker’s and Bednarek’s chapters) provides quantitative tools by which to examine hypotheses formed through qualitative analysis. Baker uses a mixed-methods approach to explore the socio-political context of the text in question via intertextuality (the similarity of one editorial to news reporting on the same topic) as well as reader reception of the text via comments posted online. This is a welcome addition, as reader reception is an aspect of discourse analysis which needs far more attention.

Context also involves elements of the immediate social situation. Harris and Rampton’s chapter uses linguistic ethnography to examine multiple layers of context from the immediate discourse situation to the background of public ideologies and participants’ relational history, using this analysis to challenge dominant interpretations of statements: what appears at first to be a straightforward expression of a racist attitude is revealed to be more of an attempt to manage friendships between girls. This is a powerful demonstration of the relevance of context to discourse analysis, given the importance of debates over racist discourse.

Both short-term and long-term historical elements of context can influence text production and interpretation, as Wodak has long argued. Her chapter explores how a European Parliament member maintained a consistent message despite presenting multiple social identities during a single day, shifts he enacted in response to different social contexts. This valuable study of politics in action reveals that much important contextual influence lies beneath the surface, and how much discourse analysts can correctly interpret is an important question.

Context becomes even more complex when one considers situations where speakers from different cultures use a language such as English as a lingua franca. Handford and Mauranen, in separate chapters, offer insights into how speakers in such contexts draw on known conventions and discourse strategies to communicate in the absence of social, cultural and historical factors which may be ‘taken for granted’ by all participants.

This same understanding of context informs Iedema and Carroll’s chapter, which made embedded practices visible not only to researchers, but to practicing clinicians who were then able to improve their own medical procedures. Such direct engagement with research participants is admirable. As Flowerdew notes in his introduction, ‘context may be contested’ (p. 6). What is relevant for one participant may not be relevant for another, and it is here that the role of cognition in context–discourse relations is most prominent. What matters is not simply the relevant factors of a communicative event’s context, but the relevant factors as understood by participants. Cognitive linguistics has made important contributions to the description of this phenomenon, and Hart’s use of image schemas to analyze news reports of political protests is a welcome addition to this volume.

Cognitive linguistics has also advanced the study of conceptualizations of spatial elements of context (see Evans and Chilton, 2010), though space and place may be examined by other means. Lou’s chapter uses geosemiotics to examine how an advertising campaign legitimizes the presence of a large arena, also revealing important conflicts between visual presentations and textual references.

This book will be of interest not only to discourse analysts, but to those interested in the contextual aspects of multimodality (see O’Halloran, Tan, and E’s chapter) and language teaching (see Rose and Martin’s and Waring’s chapters).

Overall, this book is valuable for its diversity of approaches to a poorly understood area of discourse analysis. It presents empirical studies which illustrate the complexity of contexts and the difficulties involved in their interpretation. Clearly, much work needs to be done in this area, and by offering examples of how various approaches may address social, cognitive, and intertextual aspects of contexts’ construction and influence, this book makes a convincing case for giving this area of discourse analysis the attention it deserves.