Jef Verschueren

In the face of technological advances, questions of communicative ethics seem to become more important than ever. This paper first introduces the notion of fragmented connectivity to explain major structural aspects of how public discourse can be seen to unfold today. Then we summarize two distinct studies, focusing on (i) the political weaponization of free speech, and (ii) academic complicity in politically driven historiography. Both point at the need to re-emphasize attention to communicative responsibility.

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This epilogue reflects on the notions of ‘irregularity’ and ‘mismatch’ which form the leitmotiv for this issue on perspectivization in language use, and more specifically on perspective shift and perspective persistence. While endorsing the approach, it is suggested that, given the complexities involved (who orients to what aspects of context and how?) any stable form-function coding would probably fail to perform the communicative task at hand, so that adaptable structures and processes are predictable. It is also pointed out that the observed irregularities seem to show a high degree of persistence across time and space, and it is suggested that this ‘regularity’ may be the most useful focus for this type of research.

Welcome to e-content platform of John Benjamins Publishing Company. Here you can find all of our electronic books and journals, for purchase and download or subscriber access.