STRUCTURING AND COMMENTING ON STRUCTURING IN ESTONIAN AND FRENCH ACADEMIC BOOK REVIEWS

Socio­Cultural Context of Writing

STRUCTURING AND COMMENTING ON STRUCTURING IN ESTONIAN AND FRENCH ACADEMIC BOOK REVIEWS: A CONTRASTIVE VIEW OF DISCOURSE NORMS AND TEXT STRATEGIES

Marge Käsper

College of World Languages and Cultures, University of Tartu, Estonia

The presentation takes a contrastive discourse analysis look (Münchow 2010; Claudel et al 2013) at the academic writing in two languages that are not in contact all that frequently. Historically, the Estonian socio­cultural setting has mostly been related to the German tradition, nowadays to the English one. A comparison with the French discursive space has a chance to point to aspects that otherwise do not seem significant. The basis of the analysis, the ​ tertium comparationis, ​ is a relatively comparable text genre: the book review about research, made in particular in linguistics and history (reviews published in the Estonian journals ​ Keel ja Kirjandus and ​ Tuna and in ​ Langage et Société ​ and ​ Annales ​ in the French context between 2005 and 2007). The discipline variable serves to measure the interpretations about the discursive cultures of these two different socio­cultural settings. However, instead of generalizations, the variations in textual and socio­pragmatic strategies, in the journals’ profiles, and the authors’ varying discursive socializations can be discussed. The presentation focuses on the differences in practices and also in perceptions of structuring.

Analyzing book reviews both as structured texts and as sets of commentaries about the structures of the presented books, the study can provide an overview and particular examples of a strict linearity or a re­structuring of material in the presentation process, but can also discuss the explicit or less explicit commentaries on what is presumed as generally accepted (discursively and cognitively pre­constructed) norms (Paveau 2006) in text and material structuring in the discursive settings considered.

References

Claudel et al. 2013. ​ Cultures, discours, langues. Nouveaux abordages​ , Lambert Lucas.

st Münchow, P. (von). 2010a. Langue, discours, culture : quelle articulation ? (1​ part) ​ Signes, discours et sociétés ​ 4 [en ligne] http://www.revue­signes.info/document.php?id=1439.

Münchow, P. (von). 2010b. Langue, discours, culture : quelle articulation ? (2nd part) ​ Signes, discours et sociétés ​ 4 [en ligne] ​ http://www.revue­signes.info/document.php?id=1452​ .

Paveau, M.­A. 2006. ​ Les Prédiscours. Sens, mémoire, cognition​ . Paris : Presses Sorbonne nouvelle.

Sachtleber, S. 1992. « Vue contrastive sur un genre de textes scientifiques : les actes de congrès », ​ Langages n° 105, mars 1992, 87­99.