Context: theoretical analysis and its implications for political discourse analysis

Abstract

This chapter reviews the role of context theory in political discourse studies. The concept of context has undergone some fundamental rethinking in the scientific community. Rather than being considered an external constraint on discursive performance, context is analysed as a product of discursive use and thus as an interactional achievement, which is negotiated and co-constructed, imported and invoked. Context is thus not only a psychological, but also a social and institutional construct. Discourse and context are related intrinsically with context embedding discourse and discourse invoking context. This is particularly important for the analysis of political discourse which depends strongly on its context as regards participants, discourse topics, contexts of production, contexts of utterance and contexts of reception contributing to a stretch of discourse to count as political discourse. As argued in the chapter, the complexity, multilayeredness and dynamics of context have far-reaching implications on its role in political discourse analysis not only because of its status as mediated public discourse, but also because of its participants from different linguistic and social backgrounds with diverging meaning-making processes.