In discourse, verbal messages are framed: speakers offer cues on the basis of which hearers are able to anchor the verbal message to the context. Furthermore, speakers cannot contribute to the discourse without at the same time showing their view on the subject matter of the discourse: the content of a discourse is necessarily ‘displayed’ from a certain perspective. Both the framing and perspectivising of verbal messages are not static, but subject to possible changes during the development of the discourse. Both concepts function at the intersection of a psychological-cognitive and a social-functional approach to discourse. In this volume, eight contributions are brought together which offer theoretical tools for describing and explaining framing and perspectivising devices in the production and comprehension of discourse, and apply them to the analysis of several types of discourse such as political satire, letters-to-the-editor, everyday narrations and newspaper reports.

Table of contents

List of contributors vii Social-functional and cognitive approaches to discourse interpretation: The role of frame and perspective Titus Ensink and Christoph Sauer 1–21 A multimodal perspective on composition Theo van Leeuwen 23–61 Transformational frames: Interpretative consequences of frame shifts and frame embeddings Titus Ensink 63–90 Reporting annual results: A single-case analysis Geert Jacobs 91–108 Footing, framing and the format sketch: Strategies in political satire Janet Cowper 109–145 Polyphonic constructions in everyday speech Ursula Bredel 147–170 Ajax is the agent: Subject versus passive agent as an indicator of the journalist’s perspective in soccer reports Louise Cornelis 171–189 Perspective in medical correspondence: English and German letters-to-the-editor Ines-A. Busch-Lauer 191–214 Name index 215–218 Subject index 219–222