The SC account of discourse argues against a direct contextual account in the analysis of discourse, proposing that such an account is limiting. Van Dijk argues that it is important - essential - to make explicit what aspects of context (environment) are relevant to speakers. Moreover, he argues that contexts are not objective nor deterministic - that is, they do not determine what is said, but rather 'influence' what is said. He differentiates between this and the account offered by Edwards and Potter (1992), for instance, which he argues is limited to those 'cognitions' (contexts) which speakers 'make live' in their discourse. This sounds like hair splitting. If my interpretation of the SC account is right in a perception of its emphasis on the analysis of a person's internally held interpretations of the context in which they speak (and which 'influences' rather than 'determines' - again, hair splitting) what they say, how they say it etc., then is it this emphasis on a person's 'inner interpretation' which is the difference?
I guess that van Dijk is interested in finding out what people have in their minds (hence his cognitive context models) whereas DP is quite ambivalent regarding the content of people's minds (since it is seemingly impossible to access). Consequently they explore only what people say and how it fits within an interaction. Thus context is only relevant insofar as it is utilised in interaction. Potter explains this more here: Potter, J. (1998). Cognition as context (whose cognition?). Research on Language and Social Interaction, 31(1), 29–44.
https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/dspace-jspui/bitstream/2134/9525/11/Cognition%20as%20Context.pdf
Hi Andrew
Interesting to hear your take on this question. I am familiar with Potter's article. I think that if one wants to follow or draw on DP, the cardinal rule to be followed is - whatever you do, never speculate about a person's motives!
That does seem to be the way of it! Caught between Scylla and Charybdis we have to fall in with either van Dijk (and struggle to find a way of actually getting at mental cognition) or the Loughborough-ites (and languish in a kind of quasi-behaviourism which although not deterministic, lacks any explicit articulation of why people are not completely determined).
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