Reperspectivation as a Factor of Topic Recontextualization

Abstract

The article presents the study of perspective as a dynamic phenomenon and its function in topic recontextualization in the process of communication. Understanding context as a mentally construed subjective representation of the relevant properties of a communicative situation in episodic memory of its participants gives the opportunity to differentiate the speaker’s and the hearer’s context models which overlap in the process of communication. Topic as an object of the speaker’s thought can be appropriately identified by the hearer under condition of activating the relevant context model. Topic contextualization is marked by the perspective impact which is defined as a speaking stance or position according to which the topic is viewed and interpreted. The existence of various and often divergent perspectives of the interlocutors on the same topic produces its multiperspectivity. Special attention has been focused on the cases of perspective change or reperspectivation that results in context model modification and consequently in topic recontextualization - the process of viewing and interpreting topic in a new context model.