COGNITIVE DYNAMICS OF STANCETAKING IN RISK DISCOURSE SITUATION

Authors

  • Valentyna Ushchyna Lesya Ukrainka Eastern-European National University, Ukraine

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.20535/2410-8286.154380

Keywords:

risk discourse situations, risk-taking, linguistic and cognitive mechanisms, stance, stancetaking, discourse interaction

Abstract

 

This article studies the cognitive dynamics of stancetaking in the discourse situations associated with risky behaviour and perilous decisions. The objective of this work is to find out what linguistic and cognitive mechanisms are used by speech participants to conceptualise a discourse situation as a situation of risk, and analyse the ways the stances on the discussed problem (here, the risk of addicting to FACEBOOK, as well as other social networks) are taken by discourse partners under different circumstances and varying communicative conditions. The overall theoretical framework for the study synthesises socio-constructionist and socio-cognitive approaches to discourse analysis of risk and stance. In the post-modernist model, speakers use discourse to construct versions of the world which are variable, functional and consequential. Gilles Fauconnier’s mental spaces theory (1994, 1997) served a methodological tool for re-assembling the ways stances on risks are taken in discourse interaction. Risk-taking has always been an integral part of human behaviour. We are constantly forced to make decisions that lead us towards unknown or uncertain consequences that can be potentially hazardous or even life-threatening. The study shows that the field of risk-taking in everyday life is extremely wide, embracing a diverse range of spheres such as household activities, gambling, sports, finance, medicine, technology or politics. Because risk pervades such a substantial part of our lives, it can be claimed as one of the fundamental concepts of the human conceptual system, thus, cognitive mechanisms of risk conceptualisation, as well as the linguistic ways of discursive stancetaking on risk have been determined, analysed and described in the present research.

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Author Biography

Valentyna Ushchyna, Lesya Ukrainka Eastern-European National University

professor of the English philology, Lesya Ukrainka Eastern-European National University 

 

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Published

2019-06-23

How to Cite

Ushchyna, V. (2019). COGNITIVE DYNAMICS OF STANCETAKING IN RISK DISCOURSE SITUATION. Advanced Education, 6(12), 142–149. https://doi.org/10.20535/2410-8286.154380

Issue

2019: Issue 12

Section

ARTICLES

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Copyright (c) 2019 Valentyna Antonivna Ushchyna

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