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Contextual Constraints on Thematization in Written Discourse: An Empirical Study

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Formal Aspects of Context

Part of the book series: Applied Logic Series ((APLS,volume 20))

Abstract

Context modelling and its influence on the linguistic structure of texts has been the object of much research, especially within functional theories of language [Halliday, 1978; Kress and Threadgold, 1988; Lemke, 1988; Fairclough, 1989]. In these theories the issue is how broadly the concept of context is defined. For earlier functional linguists, it referred basically to the linguistic context, whereas for some contemporary theorists who operate within a much broader social semiotics, context needs to be more discursively understood as a multi-levelled phenomenon, and ‘text’ as the product of varying contextual levels and components. In general, researchers have recognized at least three levels of context—cultural, situational and textual—each one consisting of different components and variables, with variations in the schemes of classifications, and in interpretations of the significance of the concepts.1

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain

    Julia Lavid

Authors
  1. Julia Lavid
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Université de Lausanne, Switzerland

    Pierre Bonzon

  2. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Marcos Cavalcanti

  3. Agder College, Kristiansand, Denmark

    Rolf Nossum

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© 2000 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Lavid, J. (2000). Contextual Constraints on Thematization in Written Discourse: An Empirical Study. In: Bonzon, P., Cavalcanti, M., Nossum, R. (eds) Formal Aspects of Context. Applied Logic Series, vol 20. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9397-7_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9397-7_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-5472-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-015-9397-7

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