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Spaces of Dissension pp 67–95Cite as

A Blob with Aplomb

Introducing Discourse-Linguistic Contradiction Studies Outside the Box

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Part of the book series: Contradiction Studies ((COSTU))

Abstract

In a hypothesis-based approach, the paper examines the relevance of concepts of contradiction in discourse analysis and, in turn, also addresses the relevance of discourse analysis in Contradiction Studies. Starting from a (self)critical re-reading of a central discourse-linguistic foundational model (DIMEAN, cf. Spitzmüller & Warnke 2011), contradiction will first be conceptualized as a double relation.

In discourse-linguistic modeling, clusters of utterances and practices of utterance are commonly pitted against each other in a relation of tension. This raises questions about the status of the object of discourse linguistics: is discourse considered a constructivist practice or an arrangement of utterances? In a theory of language-based discourse, the assumption of an “as-well-as” is central. Layers of text as well as praxis are interdependent and may indeed relate to each other in a tension-filled contradictory relation. This becomes most clear in pragmatic contradiction or in the contradiction between the actor-bound purpose of an utterance and its discursive effects.

A further potential field of contradictory relationality results from the status of utterances as elements of singular texts, that is, within their intra-textual environment, and as constituents of trans-textual networks of utterances. This tension-laden relation becomes particularly relevant with regard to the historicity of utterances and their truth claims.

aliud eos in religione suscepisse cum populo.

et aliud eodem ipso populo audiente defendisse privatim.

Augustinus, De vera religione I.1 (‘That they publicly participated in the usual cult, but privately and not secretly defended something quite different’ (our translation, IHW & DSB))

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We cite the translation from Danish by Jean Hersholt at The Hans Christian Andersen Centre at http://www.andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/hersholt/TheEmperorsNewClothes_e.html (accessed August 31, 2016).

  2. 2.

    Even though these stipulations may seem rather formal, we would like to stress that “p and not-p” are not variables in a strict logical sense since language use is not restricted or—to a large extent—adequately represented by logical operators. Not-p may have an entirely different linguistic form from p and still contradict p in the relational or practical sense.

  3. 3.

    Busse (1987, p. 226) points out that “discursive events have their predominant form in linguistic expressions” (our translation, IHW & DSB).

  4. 4.

    Cf. https://users.wfu.edu/~laugh/painting2/oldenburg.pdf (accessed April 12, 2017).

  5. 5.

    Our immediate inspiration, however, is Julian Rosenfeldt’s Manifesto (http://www.julianrosefeldtinberlin.de/), an adaptation of Oldenburg’s manifesto I am for an Art.

  6. 6.

    A summary of this discourse can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%B6hmermann_affair (April 7, 2017).

  7. 7.

    http://tubo1.com/ps4-attractio-trailer-id-s29t2lbA8qs.html?id=1Cr66viZL0E (10.8.2016)

  8. 8.

    http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/I’m_not_prejudiced,_but… (10.8.2016) We are explicitly citing this definition as a discursive datum instead of a linguistic textbook definition.

  9. 9.

    The data presented here were retrieved from the German language corpus “WP15-gesamt—alle Korpora des Archivs WP15 (Artikel u. Artikel- & Benutzerdiskussion 2015)” containing 1.442.658.173 word tokens of articles and user discussions on the German edition of Wikipedia. The corpus is available at the COSMAS website http://cosmas2.ids-mannheim.de (August 9, 2016). The search query was “(ich bin kein) /+ s0 aber” which results in occurrences of the bracketed string (“I am not a/an”) followed by the word aber “but” in the same sentence. The reference corpus used is the 2015-II release of “DeReKo” with approximately 29 billion word tokens.

  10. 10.

    Also, for the present examples, interpretations along the lines of content-level concession, epistemic-level concession, and speech-act-level concession (according to Sweetser 1990, p. 78–79) are conceivable.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Ingo H. Warnke & Daniel Schmidt-Brücken

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  1. Ingo H. Warnke
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Correspondence to Ingo H. Warnke .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Geography, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Julia Lossau

  2. German Linguistics, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Daniel Schmidt-Brücken

  3. German Linguistics, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Ingo H. Warnke

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Warnke, I.H., Schmidt-Brücken, D. (2019). A Blob with Aplomb. In: Lossau, J., Schmidt-Brücken, D., Warnke, I. (eds) Spaces of Dissension. Contradiction Studies. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-25990-7_4

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