PRESUPPOSITION IN DISCOURSE

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the concept of ‘presupposition’, specifically as it is applied in critical approaches to discourse analysis such as Critical Discourse Analysis or Societal Pragmatics, and proposes a systematisation of a socio-cognitive approach to the concept. Presupposition analysis is crucial for uncovering naturalised ideologies underlying discourse, and examining manipulative functions of discourse, especially strategies making it socially or cognitively harder to challenge ideological assumptions. However, the way presupposition is analysed in current critical discourse analysis is not methodologically consistent and not necessarily theoretically consistent with an understanding of discourse as socio-cognitively grounded social practice (the major overarching tenet of critical discourse analysis). I demonstrate this through a brief overview of the two main current approaches to presupposition in discourse analysis – the truth conditional and the socio-cognitive one. I propose examining presupposition on different levels of analysis, ranging from lexical-item triggered presuppositions to discourse presuppositions and mutually presupposed pragmatic competence.

KEYWORDS:

• presupposition
• ideology
• critical discourse analysis
• pragmatics

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Jon Evans for his feedback on an earlier draft of this paper.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 I would expect that ‘presupposition challenging’ occurs very often also in academic discourse, specifically in ‘responding’ to other academics’ work, and in many other forms of argumentation as ‘strategic manoeuvring’ (see e.g. van Eemeren, 2010).

2 For example, Wodak (2007) discusses specific lexical items used by former extreme right wing Austrian politician Heider which trigger anti-semitic stereotypes (e.g. ‘East Coast’ – of the USA, said to be home to a large Jewish population). She terms this type of evoked knowledge ‘allusion’; this is only one of many examples where a single phrase evokes a whole system of beliefs (i.e. an ideology).

3 The label ‘anti-peace group’, similar to the much-used ‘terrorist’, suggests a negative evaluation of the group, its activities and causes. ‘Sudanese’ labels all participants in the conflict as ‘out-groups’ in relation to the reader.

4 Allegiance or hostility towards groups involved, perceived reasons for the conflict and theories as to the justice or not of each groups’ claims.

5 The Relevance Principle (Sperber & Wilson, 1986/1996) claims to be universal in a different sense, namely, it relates to the way the human brain works regardless of context – but again, the factors determining what kind of information requires more or less processing effort, for example, depends on conventions and background knowledge which are culturally determined.

6 Of course, this kind of knowledge interacts with text/genre-level knowledge, which may lead one to suspend Grice's maxims in ritual, for example. Failure to do so would lead to misunderstandings or culturally inappropriate behaviour. This does not mean, however, that rituals are not ideologically loaded or not based on presupposed world knowledge, exactly as generic conventions more generally are linked to social conventions and purposes.

Additional information

Alexandra Polyzou is a Lecturer in Language, Communication and Applied Linguistics at Canterbury Christ Church University, where she teaches Discourse Analysis, Language and Gender, Research Methods and Intercultural Communication. Her research interests include Critical Discourse Analysis; Gender, Language and Sexuality; Cognitive Linguistics and Pragmatics. Currently, she is working on presupposition in Critical Discourse Analysis, and on intersections of Gender, Sexuality and Class in lifestyle magazines. She is Review Editor of the Journal of Language and Sexuality and an Advisory Board Member for Journalism and Discourse Studies