Elements of Critical Context Studies

In this paper, it is argued that critical discourse studies (cds) should beextended to also include what may be called critical context studies (ccs).after a summary of the new theory of context, defined in terms of specialmental models in episodic memory, subjectively representing the ‘definitionof the communicative situation’ by the participants, it is argued how a criticalanalysis of text-context relationships is fundamental for cds. the focus ofcds on power and domination presupposes the relevance of the ways socialcontexts are defined by the participants, and how such social context mayinfluence text and talk. this theoretical paper is illustrated by a detailedanalysis of fragments from a debate of 2004 held in the british house ofcommons on the hutton report, which deals with the aftermath of the mediacoverage of the war in iraq.