FG and the dynamics of discourse 217In this process both S and A, whether playing an active or reactive role,
have to deal with gradual or incremental conceptualizations and expres-
sions concerning their focus of attention (symbolized as →). In other
words, speakers’ decoding and encoding strategies involve time-
constrained conceptualizations and expressions of lexico-grammatical con-
structs that are contextually relevant, that is, which respond to text-building
and speech management strategies (i.e. information structure, textual pro-
gression, genre characteristics, conversational routines, etc.) A finer-
grained elaboration of IDCG lies well beyond the scope of this chapter.
Space constraints oblige us to concentrate on the implications that this
model may bring to the dynamics of discourse. Section 2 revises what in an
IDCG are felt to be the most relevant analytical tools to explore this issue,
namely the notions of choice, perspective and prominence as manifested in
three important attention-related dimensions: Topic, Focus, and the Theme
zone. The chapter closes with a summary (Section 3).
- The dynamics of discourse
Effective communication is an essentially strategic encoding and decoding
process, in which both S and A, whether playing an active or reactive role,
are continuously monitoring choices as to what is being said, what they
want to say, and how they want to say it, generally following two basic co-
operative principles: ‘be orderly’ and ‘be consistent with the existing topic
framework’ (Grice’s 1975 maxims of relevance and quantity). Inherent to
the notion of choice is therefore the fact that all languages offer (mini-
mally) distinct available options at different levels – such as those
exemplified in (1) and (2) – which derive their distinctiveness fundamen-
tally from their syntagmatic properties or the associative relationships
holding among their constituents, on the one hand, and from their paradig-
matic potential on the other, that is, from the oppositive or contrastive
relationships established with other units. It is these two different kinds of
relationships, paradigmatic and syntagmatic, that make one option more or
less appropriate as a motivated choice for a particular discourse co(n)text.
(1) a. and ∨there ⏐ on the /table ⏐ where my ∨newspaper had been ⏐ was my
packet of \biscuits ⏐ (LIBMSECGPT03: 046-47)^5
b. and my packet of biscuits was there, on the table, where my newspaper
had been.