Publications

Publication details [#64158]

Teubert, Wolfgang. 2018. Dialogue and what it means for discourse. Language and Dialogue 8 (1) : 66–83.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Place, Publisher
John Benjamins
Journal DOI
10.1075/ld

Annotation

This paper's starting and concluding point is the Zhuangzi, at least in parts attributed to the Chinese philosopher of the same name. His view, guided by the Daoist tradition, is that language users are free to reconstruct collectively their discursive realities (for instance the notion of happiness), as discourse does not refer to the unspoken reality. While both Edda Weigand and Roy Harris accept that meanings are not fixed, this paper disagrees with Weigand as she wants to leave behind the language sign, and with Roy Harris, as for him it is each solitary person who is creating their signs, whether they take part in discourse or not. For this paper, dialogue drives discourse in the sense of a contingent evolution of ideas, while for Weigand and Harris dialogue is driven by solitary individuals. Perhaps Weigand, Harris and this paper agree that the meaning of a word like happiness is arbitrary and they are free to construct its discursive reality, the only reality that counts.