Focus of attention in discourse
Francis Cornish
- Introduction
My goal in this chapter is to compare two functionalist theories of indexi-
cal reference in discourse in terms of topichood, seeking to critically
evaluate each both in its own terms and in terms one of the other.^1 Ulti-
mately, I aim to show where each theory may usefully illuminate the other,
resulting in a more adequate overall account of this complex and still not
fully understood area of language use.
I will begin by characterizing in Section 2 the North-American Colum-
bia School of Linguistics’ account of what it calls the Focus and Deixis
systems of attention concentration in discourse, and will then re-examine in
Section 3 the four Topic subtypes recognized in standard FG (Dik 1997a:
Ch. 13; also Hannay 1985a, 1985b, 1991; Bolkestein 1998, 2000;
Mackenzie and Keizer 1991; Siewierska 1991: Ch. 6; Gómez-González
2001) in the light of the earlier characterization of these systems. Finally,
Section 4 briefly discusses how the conception of topic (and focus) as-
signment which emerges from this comparison might be integrated into the
new Functional Discourse Grammar (FDG) model put forward by Kees
Hengeveld (this volume).
In terms of this new Functional Discourse Grammar framework, the as-
signments of Topic and Focus functions which I shall be discussing clearly
fall within the Interpersonal Level recognized within this format – the na-
ture of these pragmatic functions arguing strongly in favour of the top-
down relationship between the three descending levels of (respectively) In-
terpersonal, Representational and Expression, which structure the new
model.
A brief word, first of all, on the Columbia School (CS), which is rela-
tively little known as such in Europe (even though the work of several CS