Disorders of Discourse (Real Language Series)

About this book

Disorders of Discourse offers an innovative approach to understanding communication and its barriers in a variety of institutional contexts such as the outpatient clinic the courtroom or the school. The study presents a new theory which Ruth Wodak terms discourse sociolinguistics which is not only explicitly dedicated to the study of text in context but places equal emphasis and importance on both factors. Ruth Wodaks approach identifies and describes the underlying mechanisms which help to construct speech barriers. Often embedded in a certain context - in the structure and function of the media or in institutions such as a hospital or government ministry - these barriers inevitably affect communication. They depend on gaps between distinct cognitive worlds the gulfs that separate outsiders from insiders members of institutions from clients and they are traceable not only to the use of unfamiliar professional or technical jargon but also to the immanent structure of the various discourses themselves. The result is frame conflict in which worlds of knowledge and interest collide with one another. Those who possess linguistic as well as institutional power invariably prevail.