From stance to identity: Stancetaking in contemporary English risk discourse

Abstract

The study focuses on stancetaking – an intersubjective and context-bound discursive activity that unites micro- and micro-properties of discursive interaction. The purpose of this work consists in discovering discursive ways of situational identities construction in contemporary English risk discourse as a result of stancetaking on risk. The theoretical background for this research comprises post-structuralist and socio-constructionist approaches to discourse analysis, establishing a new, socio-cognitive, direction in discourse studies. Contemporary English risk discourse serves a situational environment for investigating stancetaking in this work. It is approached as a discursive phenomenon of two types – a risk discourse proper (communicative situation of risk) and a discourse about risk (metacommunicative situation of risk). Discursive framework of communicative situation of risk reveals cognitive, pragmatic, and interactional dynamics of stancetaking in the conditions of in situ discussion of eventual stances (decisions) on risks. The inquiry resulted in determining the stance-takers’ situational identities, ranging from risk-averse to risk-taking subjects. Investigation of conversational patterns and discursive dynamism of stance alignment enabled identification and characterization of interactional mechanisms of stancetaking in situations of risk. Explorations of stancetaking in ex situ discursive conditions of metacommunicative situations of risk shed light onto socio-semiotic potential and pragmatic-rhetorical patterns of stancetaking. Complex analysis of the stance-takers’ language output provided a basis for establishing a typology of their situational identities, constructed in mediated discourse situations – layman, expert, mediator whose strategic speech behavior depends upon the balance of epistemic and affective components in their respective stances.