ALT 8: PILAR MUR-DUEÑAS INVESTIGATES COGNITIVE DISCOURSE FUNCTIONS IN THE RECONTEXTUALISATION OF SPECIALISED KNOWLEDGE
Dr Pilar Mur-Dueñas was one of the InterGedi members that presented at the Congress of Applied Linguistics Today. The theme of this 8th edition was “Modern approaches to old and new challenges” and took place at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade (Serbia). It lasted three days, spanning from the 23rd to the 25th of May 2025.
Her paper was entitled “Recontextualising scientific knowledge in the digital medium: What role do cognitive discourse functions play”. There, she explored how the construct of cognitive discourse functions, such as classifying, evaluating or reporting, amongst others, were used to level out knowledge asymmetries between expert and diversified audiences. To do so, she analysed a corpus of 20 digital texts directed at disseminating science connected with the topics of economy and sustainability.
Read more about her presentation through her abstract below:
Recontextualising scientific knowledge in the digital medium: What role do cognitive discourse functions play
Specialised knowledge is increasingly shared and accessed through the digital medium, which necessitates the recontextualisation of scientific ideas and findings for non-expert audiences. This is critical to ensure that such knowledge is accessed, understood and accepted. Recontextualisation has been highlighted as a key aspect in the digital dissemination of science (e.g., Luzón, 2013, 2019; Calsamiglia & VanDijk, 2004; Gotti 2004; Bondi et al, 2015; Carter Thomas & Rowley-Jolivet 2020; Bondi & Cacchiani, 2021; Lorés, 2023). It is here understood as encompassing both intertextual and interdiscursive features (Mäntynen and Shore 2014), aimed at transforming discipline-specific knowledge for broader audiences. This process entails cognitive and discursive challenges requiring the selection, decomplexification, and reframing of specific ideas in ways that are accessible to digital users with varying degrees of expertise.
In this paper I will explore the role of Cognitive Discourse Functions (CDFs), namely, classification, definition, description, evaluation, explanation, exploration, and reporting (Dalton-Puffer 2013), in the recontextualisation of scientific knowledge for diversified audiences in the digital medium. The study analyses a corpus of 20 scientific disseminating digital texts, 10 texts taken from The Conversation platform and ten feature articles taken from two different sites (Nature and The Smithsonian Magazine). The texts focus on circular economy and sustainability, a topic of current significant societal relevance.
The results will examine the frequency of use of each CDF across the digital disseminating texts and discuss their role in redressing knowledge asymmetries between expert and lay audiences. This analysis aligns with current trends for open science and democratisation of scientific knowledge. The findings have significant implications for training scholars and writer mediators.
References
Bondi, M., & Cacchiani, S. (2021). Knowledge communication and knowledge dissemination in a digital world. Journal of Pragmatics, 186, 117-123.
Bondi, M., Cacchiani, S., & Mazzi, D. (Eds.). (2015). Discourse in and through the media: Recontextualizing and reconceptualizing expert discourse. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Carter-Thomas, S., & Rowley-Jolivet, E. (2020). Three Minute Thesis presentations: Recontextualisation strategies in doctoral research. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 48(1).
Calsamiglia, H., & Van Dijk, T. A. (2004). Popularization discourse and knowledge about the genome. Discourse & Society, 15(4), 369-389.
Dalton-Puffer, C. (2013). A construct of cognitive discourse functions for conceptualizing content-language integration in CLIL and multilingual education. European Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1(2), 1-38. https://doi.org/10.1515/eujal-2013-001
Gotti, M. (2014). Reformulation and recontextualization in popularization discourse. Ibérica, 27, 15-34.
Lorés, R. (2023). Dual voices, hybrid identities: The recontextualization of research in digital dissemination scientific discourse. Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a la Comunicación, 93, 69-84.
Luzón, M. J. (2013). Public communication of science in blogs: Recontextualizing scientific discourse for a diversified audience. Written Communication, 30(4), 428-457.
Luzón, M. J. (2019). Bridging the gap between experts and publics: The role of multimodality in disseminating research in online videos. Ibérica, 37, 167-192.
Mäntynen, A., & Shore, S. (2014). What is meant by hybridity? An investigation of hybridity and related terms in genre studies. Text & Talk, 34(6), 737–758. https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2014-0022