Discourse Studies

Discourse studies at IfL explores pragmatic, cognitive, and semiotic aspects of large linguistic units. “Discourse” is taken as the domain of language use (in Du Bois’ terms) and as a process rather than a product (in Widdowson’s terms). Research and teaching interests encompass the interface between syntax and pragmatics; discourse structure above the sentence level; the conceptual mapping, blending, and compression behind figurative language; the relation between texts and socio-cultural contexts in contemporary as well as in historical texts (communication strategies, text production and text performance); and the theoretical underpinnings of multi- and cross-modal features in oral genres. Past and current synchronic and diachronic approaches apply contemporary frameworks to linguistic phenomena in ancient Greek corpora; further corpora are being progressively added. The starting team looks forward to increasing collaborations with the other sections of IfL, as well as with other Institutes, within and beyond the University of Cologne.