Discourse, Consciousness and Time
Flow and Displacement of Conscious Experience in Speaking and Writing
Published on 15. October 1994
Book
Hardback
392 pages
978-0-226-10053-1 (ISBN)
Description
In this text, the author demonstrates how the study of language and consciousness together can provide an unexpectedly broad understanding of the way the mind works. Relying on close analyses of conversational speech, as well as written fiction and non-fiction, he investigates both the flow of ideas through consciousness and the displacement of consciousness by way of memory and imagination. Chafe draws on several decades of research to demonstrate that understanding the nature of consciousness is essential to understanding many linguistic phenomena, such as pronouns, tense, clause structure and intonation, as well as stylistic usages, such as the historical present and the free indirect style. While the book focuses on English, there are also discussions of the North American Indian language, Seneca, and the music of Mozart and of the Seneca people.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Chicago
United States
Publishing group
The University of Chicago Press
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
17 line drawings
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 160 mm
Weight
650 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-226-10053-1 (9780226100531)
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Schweitzer Classification
Content
Preface Acknowledgments Symbols Used in Transcriptions of Speech 1: Introduction 2: Understanding Language and the Mind 3: The Nature of Consciousness 4: Speaking and Writing 5: Intonation Units 6: Activation Cost 7: Starting Points, Subjects, and the Light Subject Constraint 8: Identifiability and "Definiteness" 9: The One New Idea Constraint 10: Discourse Topics 11: Topic Hierarchies and Sentences 12: Another Language 13: Some Alternative Approaches to Information Flow 14: The Flow of Consciousness in Music 15: The Immediate and Displaced Modes in Conversational Language 16: Representing Other Speech and Thought in Conversation 17: Displaced Immediacy in Written First-Person Fiction 18: Representing Other Speech and Thought in First-Person Fiction with Displaced Immediacy 19: Displaced Immediacy in Written Third-Person Fiction 20: Written Fiction That (Partially) Lacks a Represented Consciousness 21: Written Nonfiction 22: Displacement Integrated with Flow 23: Written Paragraphs and Discourse Topics 24: Epilogue References Index