What About Context? Comparison of Methodological Insights on Situational Features in Discourse Analysis

Aulit, Laetitia [UCL]

According to Charaudeau and Maingueneau (2002), context encompasses a set of elements that enable, for example, to disambiguate discursive constructions like pronouns and polysemic structures, to understand implicit meanings behind explicit statements, and to grasp the correct interpretation of a statement based on the speaker’s ideological position. Consequently, taking context into account is essential for discourse analysis, whether for research in linguistics or another field, since discourse analysis is at the crossroads of disciplines such as sociology, political science, and information and communication sciences, among others (Bonnafous & Temmar, 2013). For this reason, this paper proposes to reflect on the situational features to be considered when conducting a qualitative discourse analysis, not only in linguistics but also in other research fields. To this end, it proposes a comparison of the situational variables employed for analysing three different types of discourse. Firstly, the situational variables used to investigate face-to-face oral interactions, based on Albelda Marco et al.'s (2014) methodology. Secondly, the situational variables applied in the study of written interactions on X (Twitter), on the basis of Aulit's (2023) methodology to analyse digital interactions. Thirdly, the situational variables involved in the analysis of parliamentary debates, from the interdisciplinary methodology developed to examine references to populism in the project Discourse, populism and democracy. Tracking the uses of populism in media and politique discourse (TrUMPo) of the Université catholique de Louvain (publication in progress). The comparison shows that the situational variables used in the three selected methodologies revolve around three dimensions: i) the concrete communicative situation, ii) the participants in the communication, and iii) the aim of the communication. Therefore, we suggest that these three dimensions should be included when conducting research based on discourse analysis. As example, we propose a practical application through the situational analysis of a media excerpt taken from the TrUMPo project. Albelda Marco, M., Briz Gómez, A., Cestero Mancera, A. M., Kotwica, D., & Villalba Ibáñez, C. (2014). Ficha metodológica para el análisis pragmático de la atenuación en corpus discursivos del español. (ES.POR.ATENUACIÓN). Oralia, 17, 7-62. Aulit, L. (2023). Atenuación e intensificación para posicionarse en contextos de controversia. Estudio de interacciones digitales escritas y orales sobre tradiciones españolas. Université catholique de Louvain. Bonnafous, S., & Temmar, M. (Eds.). (2013). Discourse Analysis and Human and Social Sciences. Peter Lang. Charaudeau, P., & Maingueneau, D. (Eds.). (2002). Dictionnaire d’analyse du discours. Seuil.