Philosophy as Self-Constituting Discourse: The Case of Dialogue

2013

This work focuses on "studies of discourse in Brazil." The main reflections of this paper is, therefore, the practice of linguistic studies postulated and used in Brazil, under the name of Discourse Analysis: an important theory to many Brazilian linguists, with high regard in many universities in that country, and responsible for huge number of printed and virtual publications, on Linguistics in Brazil. To scrutinize the theories of discourse, methodologically, we will show a framework of authors and their ways of thinking over the discourse, which, togetherly, make up the knowledge of Discourse Analysis: Michel Pê cheux, Michel Foucault, Eni Orlandi and Eduardo Guimarã es, mainly.

Dvorkin I. Philosophy of Dialogue: a historical and systematic introduction. // Judaica Petropolitana. № 13. (2020), pp. 6-24.

The question about the philosophy of dialogue can be answered in three complementary senses: historical, systematic, and applied. The philosophy of dialogue arose in the 1920s in Germany and Russia. The works of Rosenzweig, Buber, Ebner, Bakhtin should be mentioned as the most important works introducing the philosophy of dialogue as a special line of thought. However, dialogical ideas have been expressed before. We consider the works of Hermann Cohen written in 1902–1918 to be a particularly important source of the philosophy of dialogue. Later, the philosophy of dialogue was significantly developed in the works of E. Levinas in France and V. Bibler in the Soviet Union. This philosophical current was studied and developed by scholars and thinkers in Germany, Israel, USA, Russia and other countries. In a systematic sense, the philosophy of dialogue can be viewed as a kind of “first philosophy” that interprets reality as a dialogue of persons. The philosophy of dialogue deals with first, second and third persons singular, and first person plural and their relationships. Reality is understood as a dynamic process of interpersonal relationships. Speech and language are interpreted not as a way of formulating thoughts, but as a fundamental carrier of interpersonal relations. The philosophy of dialogue is formulated by its creators as a language, speech or grammatical philosophy. Since reality is interpreted in it as an interpersonal process, the philosophy of dialogue ives rise to original understanding of the nature of space, time, causality, biological, mental and social life. The philosophy of dialogue removes the contradiction between the humanities and natural sciences; it also forms new methods of historical research. Considering the interpersonal process fundamental, the philosophy of dialogue becomes an important foundation of edagogy both in theoretical and practical dimensions.

This short paper, which is intended for discussion and to generate interest in the relationship between CA and literary dialogue, is based on the general observation that poeticity seems to be a phenomenon of natural talk. Early studies of poetics assumed that language commonly regarded as "literary" was evidence of a "poetic function" (Jakobson 1960) that was specific to literature. There is evidence to suggest, however, that poeticity is an all-embracing aspect of language and not the province of literature alone. This casts doubt on the notion that there is such a phenomenon as "literary" language which can be distinguished from "non-literary", i.e. ordinary, language. It is suggested here that the existence of poeticity in conversation has consequences for the analysis of dialogue in literature and that CA may have a role to play in this kind of study. To set up this argument, the general area of poetics and conversation will be sketched out in section 1.0 and the relationship between conversation and dialogue in literature discussed in section 2.0. Section 3.0 identifies particular issues which need to be explored further.

The historical backgrounds for the current analysis of talk in its social context are as diverse as the actual orientations in this approach to discourse. Although sociology and anthropology may be the overall disciplinary location for these backgrounds, the differentiation in theoretical, methodological, and philosophical labels used to identify these orientations suggests that the influences have been multiple. Phenomenology, qualitative and cognitive sociology, microsociology, ethnomethodology, symbolic interactionism, the sociology of everyday life, formal sociology, and the ethnography of speaking have been the inscriptions on the signposts that have guided the various developments leading to a common interest in the study of natural discourse. Obviously this introduction can neither sketch the full history of such antecedents nor disentangle the complexity and variety of its present-day offspring. Rather, we must try to describe the more general features of this work and sketch the outlines of a framework for the chapters that appear in this volume. These few introductory pages only allow mention of some central concepts and principies of research. How the analysis of dialogue actually works is shown by the chapters in this volume and by the many referentes to past and current work in the field of conversational and dialogical analysis.

DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), 2014

Undertaking the issues addressed in this article was influenced by at least a couple of reasons, among which especially the fact of spreading the concept of discourse in various spheres of social life, despite the vague, imprecise meaning of the term, the sense of which usually emerges from the context in which it is used. Moreover, what seems interesting is the broad enough discretion in the use of the category of discourse by the authors of papers of various problem scope and level and singling out different types of discourse in the considerations undertaken (i.e., political, legal, historical, philosophical, educational, scientific, etc.) without clear criteria of this typology. What is more, the issue of qualitative research on discourse, which is still not adequately appreciated, not only in the sciences of education, also appears to be important. Forum Oświatowe 1(51) Część I. Studia i rozprawy I begin my considerations with a few introductory remarks, and then refer to the more important etymological issues, and consider the question of importance of discourse. Furthermore, I pay attention to the emerging problems with the concept of discourse and refer to some selected aspects of discourse research, including the role and position of the researcher. Finally, I attempt to summarize the discussion.

Journal of Pragmatics, 2009

The term discourse analysis first entered general use in a series of papers published by Harris (1952). During the past 10 years, the study of discourse analysis has turned into a growth industry in linguistics. An extensive body of pragmatic and linguistic research deals with functional utterances or written texts in human interaction. Studies of discourse have been carried out within a variety of traditions that investigate the relations between language, structure and agency. Up to now discourse analysis has been taken up in a variety of social science disciplines, including linguistics, anthropology, sociology, cognitive psychology, sociology, international relations and communication studies, etc., each of which is subject to its own assumptions, dimensions of analysis, and methodologies. Advances in Discourse Studies brings together contributions from leading scholars in the field, investigating the historical and theoretical development of discourse studies and pointing towards new directions for the future of the discipline. Among the more recent developments are an increasing 'critical' turn in discourse analysis, a growing interest in historical, ethnographic and corpus-based approaches to discourse, more concern with the social contexts in which discourse occurs, the social actions that are employed and the identities that are constructed through it, as well as a revaluation of what counts as 'discourse' to include multimodal texts and interaction. With respect to discourse analysis a lot of approaches have tackled this issue and the editors bring together some of the most prominent scholars of discourse analysis to survey the field in light of their new development, reflecting the perspective of the editors. As the name of the book suggests, the present volume is not interested in describing the type of work that has been done using these various approaches as the editors are showing how those working areas are changing certain parameters, which often involves borrowing from other fields and other schools of discourse analysis. The volume opens with a general remark, which serves as an introduction to the book; the editors provide an overview of the key concepts and issues that have been raised by the new discursive turn of language in use in particular and a brief synopsis of the different approaches to discourse analysis. Their comprehensive review of literature on the treatment of discourse in use is one of the strengths of the volume. Following the general introduction, the book is divided into seven parts to discuss some of the specific topics. The main discussion, divided into subsections, is preceded with an overview in this particular field and followed with suggestions for further work, which enables researchers to expand knowledge on topics in which they are interested. The topics dealt with in this volume include the following areas: conversation analysis, ethnographic-based discourse analysis, corpus-based discourse analysis, multimodal discourse analysis, genre analysis, critical discourse analysis and mediated discourse analysis respectively. This is an invaluable resource for researchers of interdisciplinary discourse analysis. The book closes with a four page index of authors and concepts, facilitating easy access to specific issues. The following is a detailed introduction to each part. Part One mainly discusses topics on conversation analysis. Conversation Analysis (CA), a research tradition that grew out of ethnomethodology, bears some unique methodological features. The central goal of conversation analytic research is the description and explication of the competences that ordinary speakers use and rely on in participating in intelligible, socially organized interaction. Of the two articles presented in this chapter, Drew and Curl's paper Conversation analysis: overview and new directions (22-35) reviews the background and progress of CA and points out the gap in previous research by enlarging the research scope to investigating the organizations of and interconnections between four underlying characteristics www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma

In this paper, I would like to share some thoughts provoked by the idea of establishing 'dialogue studies' as a distinct academic field, as suggested in the inaugural call for contributions to the new journal. These are not meant to be exhaustive of all the relevant questions that could be considered under this heading. I do not, for example, consider the question of disciplinary contributions or boundaries. My emphasis, rather, is on questions to do with ethos and coherence. In particular, I am interested in exploring the possibility, and the challenges, of cultivating a dialogic approach to the study of dialogue itself. My reflections begin with a look at the tendency, within academia, to privilege debate as a form of communication and the question of whether we might conceive a Journal of Dialogue Studies as a forum for a different kind of exchange. I then reflect on some of the difficulties of studying dialogue itself, particularly where this involves outside observers. The final section raises some issues around 'studying dialogue' in relation to teaching, learning and assessment. My overall intention here is to share some current, tentative thoughts in the hope that this contributes to a dialogue on the idea, and perhaps the practice, of 'dialogue studies'.

J Pragmatics, 1986

2015

The following article, 1 argues for the distinction between » thematic structure« and «information structure« as set up by Halliday. Information structure is believed to be expressed by intonation, and the »nucleus« marks the »focus of informations It is claimed that the concept of »normal intonation« has to be restricted if not abandoned since it is the speaker who decides where the nucleus falls, on the basis of what he wants to communicate. The communicative function of sentences is expressed by word order in conjunction with intonation.

In this paper, I would like to share some thoughts provoked by the idea of establishing ‘dialogue studies’ as a distinct academic field, as suggested in the inaugural call for contributions to the new journal. These are not meant to be exhaustive of all the relevant questions that could be considered under this heading. I do not, for example, consider the question of disciplinary contributions or boundaries. My emphasis, rather, is on questions to do with ethos and coherence. In particular, I am interested in exploring the possibility, and the challenges, of cultivating a dialogic approach to the study of dialogue itself. My reflections begin with a look at the tendency, within academia, to privilege debate as a form of communication and the question of whether we might conceive a Journal of Dialogue Studies as a forum for a different kind of exchange. I then reflect on some of the difficulties of studying dialogue itself, particularly where this involves outside observers. The final section raises some issues around ‘studying dialogue’ in relation to teaching, learning and assessment. My overall intention here is to share some current, tentative thoughts in the hope that this contributes to a dialogue on the idea, and perhaps the practice, of ‘dialogue studies’.

BDL Publishing, 2013

Anyone acquainted with Peter Serracino Inglott's numerous philosophical interests would certainly know of the importance he attributed to language as the central and defining feature of humanity. His views on language can be found in two texts, namely, Peopled Silence (1995) and Beginning Philosophy (1987). Peopled Silence is structured as a textbook and it provides a systematic elaboration of the various aspects studied in the philosophy of language (syntax, semantics, pragmatics and poetics), while Beginning Philosophy is, strictly speaking, not about the philosophy of language but provides a philosophical methodology. This text did not receive much attention at the time of its publication, with the notable exception of Mario Vella's critical response, Reflections in a Canvas Bag (1989). This paper will examine some of the issues raised in the early text concerning language, communication and dialogue. Given that language is so important to Serracino Inglott's vision of philosophy in particular, and of life in general, I will start 1. by providing an account of the communicative dimension of language; followed by 2. the reconfiguration of this dimension into dialogue; and 3. conclude with his claim that the method of philosophy consists in the analysis of language. The purpose of this paper is to provide an exposition of Serracino Inglott's views together with a critical analysis. Human Communication Given the 'linguistic turn' that has characterized contemporary western philosophy, first within Anglo-American philosophy, and later within Continental philosophy, it should come as no surprise that Serracino Inglott considers the philosophy of language as pivotal to philosophy itself. In Beginning Philosophy, it is the pragmatic or communicative dimension of language-as opposed to the syntactical (the ordering of words), semantic (the relationship between language and the world) or the poetic (the literary productions of language)-that is the focus of his interest .Serracino Inglott identifies human linguistic communication as a marker or sign of human identity, i .e ., what it is that makes us human, as opposed to other forms of communication, in this case, animals (Serracino Inglott 1987, p .85). He raises two points:1. Human

Riassunto di un libro sull'analisi semantica

(Eds.), Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge Press, 2008. ISBN 13 978 0 415 39809 1 (Hardback), ISBN 13 978 0 415 39810 7 (Paperback). ix + 262 pp. The term discourse analysis first entered general use in a series of papers published by Harris (1952). During the past 10 years, the study of discourse analysis has turned into a growth industry in linguistics. An extensive body of pragmatic and linguistic research deals with functional utterances or written texts in human interaction. Studies of discourse have been carried out within a variety of traditions that investigate the relations between language, structure and agency. Up to now discourse analysis has been taken up in a variety of social science disciplines, including linguistics, anthropology, sociology, cognitive psychology, sociology, international relations and communication studies, etc., each of which is subject to its own assumptions, dimensions of analysis, and methodologies. Advances in Discourse Studies brings together contributions from leading scholars in the field, investigating the historical and theoretical development of discourse studies and pointing towards new directions for the future of the discipline. Among the more recent developments are an increasing 'critical' turn in discourse analysis, a growing interest in historical, ethnographic and corpus-based approaches to discourse, more concern with the social contexts in which discourse occurs, the social actions that are employed and the identities that are constructed through it, as well as a revaluation of what counts as 'discourse' to include multimodal texts and interaction. With respect to discourse analysis a lot of approaches have tackled this issue and the editors bring together some of the most prominent scholars of discourse analysis to survey the field in light of their new development, reflecting the perspective of the editors. As the name of the book suggests, the present volume is not interested in describing the type of work that has been done using these various approaches as the editors are showing how those working areas are changing certain parameters, which often involves borrowing from other fields and other schools of discourse analysis. The volume opens with a general remark, which serves as an introduction to the book; the editors provide an overview of the key concepts and issues that have been raised by the new discursive turn of language in use in particular and a brief synopsis of the different approaches to discourse analysis. Their comprehensive review of literature on the treatment of discourse in use is one of the strengths of the volume. Following the general introduction, the book is divided into seven parts to discuss some of the specific topics. The main discussion, divided into subsections, is preceded with an overview in this particular field and followed with suggestions for further work, which enables researchers to expand knowledge on topics in which they are interested. The topics dealt with in this volume include the following areas: conversation analysis, ethnographic-based discourse analysis, corpus-based discourse analysis, multimodal discourse analysis, genre analysis, critical discourse analysis and mediated discourse analysis respectively. This is an invaluable resource for researchers of interdisciplinary discourse analysis. The book closes with a four page index of authors and concepts, facilitating easy access to specific issues. The following is a detailed introduction to each part. Part One mainly discusses topics on conversation analysis. Conversation Analysis (CA), a research tradition that grew out of ethnomethodology, bears some unique methodological features. The central goal of conversation analytic research is the description and explication of the competences that ordinary speakers use and rely on in participating in intelligible, socially organized interaction. Of the two articles presented in this chapter, Drew and Curl's paper Conversation analysis: overview and new directions (22–35) reviews the background and progress of CA and points out the gap in previous research by enlarging the research scope to investigating the organizations of and interconnections between four underlying characteristics