Semantic discontinuities as text production strategies

Speech may be seen as a discourse action performed in order to achieve contextually relevant goals by the speaker S. To attain these goals, plans and strategies are worked out. The recourse to semantic discontinuities (d) is one such cognitive strategy. Three aspects of it will be considered, to introduce a d, to perpetuate or aggravate a d, and to resolve a d. A theoretical discussion of recourse to d is presented together with results obtained from analysis of four texts, produced in a debate context. It is shown that individual and context variables affect the recourse to d and its role within the entire linguistic interaction. © 1982, North-Holland Publishing Company