This multidisciplinary project systematically investigates the
relations between discourse and knowledge. Firstly, the
epistemological foundation of the project will consist of a new
definition of knowledge in terms of belief consensus in epistemic
communities and knowledge attribution in discursive contexts. Secondly,
the cognitive theory focuses on a typology of knowledge and on the
strategies of the acquisition, activation, application and change of
knowledge in text processing. It will be investigated whether and how
knowledge management in text processing is controlled by a special
knowledge device in the mental context models of the speech
participants. Thirdly, the linguistic and discourse analytical part of
the project will investigate the structures and strategies at all
levels of text and talk, especially those of local and global meaning,
that manifest these forms knowledge management: (in) definiteness, give-new and topic-comment relations, presuppositions,
implications, evidendiality, etc. Fourthly, if knowledge is defined as a form of
social cognition, also the social dimension of knowledge management
needs to be investigated, especially for public discourse in education,
science and the media, involving both interactional and institutional
aspects of knowledge distribution as well as strategies of power and
legitimization. Finally, the cultural aspects of the relations between
discourse and knowledge will be investigated, such as the notion of
(cultural) Common Ground as the basis of all (discourse) comprehension
and interaction in given cultures -- defined as epistemic communities.
MY PUBLICATIONS ON DISCOURSE AND KNOWLEDGE
Knowledge frames, macrostructures
and discourse comprehension. Paper 12th Carnegie-Mellon Symposium on
Cognition, Pittsburgh, 1976. In: M. Just & P. Carpenter, (Eds.)
Cognitive Processes in Comprehension . Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1977,
3-32.
Context and cognition. Knowledge frames and speech act comprehension. Journal of Pragmatics 1, 1977, 211-232.
Types of knowledge in discourse processing. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2001.
Spanish version in Giovanni Parodi (Ed.), Lingüística e
Interdisciplinariedad: Desafíos del nuevo milenio. Ensayos en
honor a Marianne Peronard. (pp. 43-66). Valparaíso: Editorial
Universitaria de Valparaíso, 2002.
Knowledge and News. Revista Canaria e Estudios Ingleses 49, noviembre 2004, pp. 71-86.
Spanish version: El conocimiento y las noticias. En: J. V.
Gavaldà, C. Gregori Signes, & R. X. Rosselló Ivars
(Eds.), La cultura mediàtica. Modes de
representació i estratègies discursives. (pp. 249-269).
Universitat de València, Facultat de Filologia, 2002.
The Discourse-Knowledge Interface. In Gilbert Weiss & Ruth Wodak
(Eds.), Critical Discourse Analysis. Theory and Interdisciplinarity.
(pp. 85-109). Houndsmills, UK: Palgrave-MacMillan, 2003.
Conocimiento, elaboración del discurso y educación.
Escribanía 8 (enero-junio, 2002), pp. 5-22. Universidad de
Manizales, Colombia.
Discourse, knowledge and ideology. In Martin Pütz, JoAnne Neff
& Teun A. van Dijk (Eds.), Communicating Ideologies.
Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Language, Discourse and Social
Practice. (pp. 5-38). Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 2004.
Knowledge in parlamentary debates. Journal of Language and
Politics , 2(2003), 93-129. Special issue on identity
politics. Ed. by Paul Chilton.
Contextual knowledge management in discourse production. A CDA
perspective. In Ruth Wodak and Paul Chilton (Eds.), A New Agenda
in (Critical) Discourse Analysis. (pp. 71-100) Amsterdam: Benjamins,
2005.
Specialized discourse and knowledge. A case study of the discourse of
modern genetics. En E. M. Morato, A. C. Bentes & M. L. Cunha Lima
(Eds.), Homenagem a Ingedore Koch. Cadernos de Estudos
Lingüisticos 44, Unicamp, Campinas, Brasil, 2003, pp. 21-56.
Popularization discourse and knowledge about the genome. Discourse
& Society, 15(4), 369-389 (with Helena Calsamiglia as first author).