Jef Verschueren

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor Emeritus at University of Antwerp

The widespread view that risk is highly relevant in late modern societies has also meant that the very study of risk has become central in many areas of social studies. The key aim of this book is to establish Risk Discourse as a field of research of its own in language studies. Risk Discourse is introduced as a field that not only targets elements...

Expanded Dutch version of "Complicity in discourse and practice"

The Manual section of the Handbook of Pragmatics, produced under the auspices of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA), is a collection of articles describing traditions, methods, and notational systems relevant to the field of linguistic pragmatics; the main body of the Handbook contains all topical articles. The first edition of the Man...

The Manual section of the Handbook of Pragmatics, produced under the auspices of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA), is a collection of articles describing traditions, methods, and notational systems relevant to the field of linguistic pragmatics; the main body of the Handbook contains all topical articles. The first edition of the Man...

The Manual section of the Handbook of Pragmatics, produced under the auspices of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA), is a collection of articles describing traditions, methods, and notational systems relevant to the field of linguistic pragmatics; the main body of the Handbook contains all topical articles. The first edition of the Man...

This article explores the shift from earlier overt and mainstream acceptance of societal diversity (combined with an underlying homogeneistic ideology) to the overt problematization of diversity (combined with explicit homogeneism). Two discursive tools are seen to be at work: a form of anti-discourse directly confronting alternative discourses (la...

It is commonplace to say that we are living in troubled times. Liberal democracy is in crisis. Academic freedom is seriously constrained. The media offers less insight and analysis than could be expected given the proliferation of communication tools. Based on decades of research into the social and ideological functioning of discourse and with a f...

This entry starts out with a discussion, in very broad strokes, of the evolutionary basis of linguistic diversity. What follows is an overview of the many ways in which languages differ and a description of how diversity relates to space and time. The argument is made that even though diversity is not unrestricted, true universals are few and far b...

Este artigo parte das observações de que (i) todo uso de linguagem combina, inevitavelmente, significado explícito e implícito e (ii) todas as línguas têm meios estruturais à sua disposição para marcar significado implícito. Isso parece uma espécie de paradoxo pragmático: se é possível falar sobre “marcadores de implicatura” (um nome geral para tod...

In the context of migration policies in Belgium in the 1990's, this book analyses the discourse of the 'tolerant' majority, as found in news reporting, policy statements, social-scientific research reports, anti-racism campaigns and training programs. The analysis reveals what the authors call a 'homogeneistic' ideology, fundamental non-acceptance...

This epilogue reflects on the notions of ‘irregularity’ and ‘mismatch’ which form the leitmotiv for this issue on perspectivization in language use, and more specifically on perspective shift and perspective persistence. While endorsing the approach, it is suggested that, given the complexities involved (who orients to what aspects of context and h...

This paper focuses on the dynamics of language, more specifically on the role of adaptability in meaning-generating processes in actual language use. From that perspective, the argument will be made that the question "What does x mean?" not only requires the extension "… in context y" (as is commonly accepted in pragmatics and even in certain forms...

It is hard to imagine a text more serious than Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals (1971). It is what its title says, a set of guidelines for those aspiring to become organizers of societal change – revolutionaries of some kind, the 'realistic' kind. The guidelines are 'pragmatic' in its everyday sense, henc...

This article starts from the observation of current changes in the nature of a globalizing public sphere for which older structural boundaries have lost much of their relevance. Though the public sphere has traditionally been a topic for social scientists (and philosophers), a redefinition in terms of the realm of publicly accessible meaning, and o...

Linguistic pragmatics is defined, for the purposes of this article, as the science of language use. Its roots in linguistics, psychology, anthropology, and especially semiotics and the philosophy of language are briefly described. Then some basic notions of pragmatics are reviewed: deixis and indexicality, forms of implicit meaning such as presuppo...

Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General Session Dedicated to the Contributions of Charles J. Fillmore (1994)

Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1981), pp. 328-335

Discourse Studies is an interdisciplinary field studying the social production of meaning across the entire spectrum of the social sciences and humanities. The Discourse Studies Reader brings together 40 key readings from discourse researchers in Europe and North America, some of which are now translated into English for the first time. Divided int...

This article shows that an ethnography of communication approach is not only relevant to an understanding of how ways of speaking and language codes define the social-group boundaries of specific speech communities, but (1) that it can be equally pertinent to the analysis of the ideologies and language use of certain communities of practice, and (2...

The relationship between language and ideology has long been central to research in discourse analysis, pragmatics, sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, and has also informed other fields such as sociology and literary criticism. This book, by one of the world's leading pragmatists, introduces a new framework for the study of ideology in w...

Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (1976), pp. 386-395

The ten volumes of Handbook of Pragmatics Highlights focus on the most salient topics in the field of pragmatics, thus dividing its wide interdisciplinary spectrum in a transparent and manageable way. While the other volumes select specific philosophical, cognitive, grammatical, social, cultural, variational, interactional, or discursive angles, th...

This article inquires into the role of meaning in linguistic pragmatics (conceived in its widest interdisciplinary sense as a cognitive, social, and cultural perspective on language and communication). With reference to earlier discussions of the relationship between meaning and intention, especially in the anthropological linguistic literature, tw...

This paper discusses some basic properties of intercultural communication (treated from the point of view of linguistic pragmatics as fundamentally similar to any other form of communication, and emphasising the need to move radically away from any essentialist substantiation of ‘culture’) against the background of contexts of migration. Three fiel...

This volume unites various contributions reflecting the intellectual interests exhibited by Professor Herman Parret (Institute of Philosophy, Leuven), who has continued to observe, and often critically assess, ongoing developments in pragmatics throughout his career. In fact, Parret’s contributions to philosophical and empirical/linguistic pragmati...

Abstract This paper describes how political discourse, as manifested in the policy statements of two Flemish political parties which assign to themselves the epithet ‘social’, contributes to the erasion of group-based or classrelated forms of social inequality. A brief comparison with the academic defense of ‘Third Way’ politics (in the work of Ant...

In this article, some of the pitfalls of critical analyses in socially relevant forms of linguistic research or discourse analysis are spelled out. Though the point of reference is Norman Fairclough’s version of critical discourse analysis, the observations can easily be extended to various related types of work. The argument is made that, in order...

Abstract Against the background of a general theory of pragmatics, reflections are formulated on the central role of metapragmatic awareness as a specific manifestation of salience, the status of processes of meaning generation in language use in relation to the cognitive apparatus. First the notions of metalanguage and metapragmatics, as used in l...

This contribution reflects on the status of pragmatics as a ‘critical’ discipline. First some aspects of the institutionalization of pragmatics are considered. Then the ways in which authority is established and maintained in relation to basic concepts and ideas are investigated. Finally, some conclusions are formulated on the future of the field.

Language ideologies are cultural representations, whether explicit or implicit, of the intersection of language and human beings in a social world. Mediating between social structures and forms of talk, such ideologies are not only about language. Rather, they link language to identity, power, aesthetics, morality and epistemology. Through such lin...

The abstract for this document is available on CSA Illumina.To view the Abstract, click the Abstract button above the document title.

Les As. examinent un episode de la rhetorique publique slovene qui se situe entre avril 1992 et mars 1993 et qui concerne la politique sur les refugies bosniaques. Grâce a une analyse textuelle pragmatique, ils soulignent les aspects implicites de la construction du probleme des refugies en termes de surnombre et de menace pour l'ordre public et ex...

This article investigates some methodological problems involved in a discourse-centered exploration of societal ideologies, and in particular in an ongoing research program studying publicly accessible discourse in a number of European countries related to interethnic conflicts, the construction of ethnic or national identities, and nation-building...

This volume reflects the influence of Chuck Fillmore’s ground-breaking work in the fields of semantics and pragmatics. The papers in the volume pay tribute to his pioneering research into the deepest realms of the nature of ‘meaning’.

L'A. prend les racines semiotiques de la pragmatique, et en particulier les vues exprimees par Morris (1938), comme point de depart pour montrer combien une perspective semiotique generale peut fournir le type de coherence dont a tant besoin le champ de la pragmatique linguistique

In this article we summarise the methodological principles and research results of an extensive investigation of four types of discourse about ‘the migrant problem’ in Belgium: news reporting, political policy documents, social‐scientific research reports, and a training programme. The analysis, which shows a fundamental similarity between the ideo...

pdf van het boek dat in 1992 en daarna heelwat discussie veroorzaakte, en helaas niets van zijn relevantie verloren heeft.

At an international conference held in 1981 at the Universidada Estudual of Campinas (Brazil), a controversial lecture was given by John Searle which presented two conceptual theses: that conversation does not have an intrinsic structure about which a relevant theory can be formulated, and that conversations are not subject to (constitutive) rules....

At an international conference held in 1981 at the Universidada Estudual of Campinas (Brazil), a controversial lecture was given by John Searle which presented two conceptual theses: that conversation does not have an intrinsic structure about which a relevant theory can be formulated, and that conversations are not subject to (constitutive) rules....

Newspaper reports, political policy papers, and investigations by social scientists concerning issues related to the presence of a community of migrant workers in Belgium are subjected to a systematic, pragmatic analysis. The analysis reveals an eminently coherent world of beliefs and attitudes with respect to (1) perceptions of the “other,” (2) th...

This volume contains a selection of papers from a special session of the International Pragmatics Conference (Antwerp, August 1987) and from the Symposium on Intercultural Communication (Ghent, December 1987). Studying the communicative styles of cultures and social groups, both at the descriptive level and at the level of pragmatic theory constru...

This volume contains a selection of papers from a special session of the International Pragmatics Conference (Antwerp, August 1987) and from the Symposium on Intercultural Communication (Ghent, December 1987). Studying the communicative styles of cultures and social groups, both at the descriptive level and at the level of pragmatic theory constru...

Linguistics and crosscultural communication (Review article)* - Volume 13 Issue 4 - Jef Verschueren

Some of the central problems of (comparative) lexical semantics are dealt with: (i) How does one decide which word groups if any should be treated as lexical items and which ones should not? (ii) What are the limitations of componential analysis and semantic field theory as methods to describe the internal semantic structure of lexical items and th...

An ‘integrated theory of pragmatics’ is defined as the study of the appropriateness conditions on the use of natural language. In search of such a theory, the recent work by Peter Harder and Christian Kock, The theory of presupposition failure, is subjected to a detailed investigation. Its theoretical apparatus is shown to contain some of the eleme...