With her theory of ‘Language as Dialogue’, Edda Weigand has opened up a new
and promising perspective in linguistic research and its neighbouring
disciplines. Her model of ‘competence-in-performance’ solved the problem of
how to bridge the gap between competence and performance and thus
substantially shaped the way in which people look at language today.
This book traces Weigand’s linguistic career from its beginning to today
and comprises a selection of articles which take the reader on a vivid and
fascinating journey through the most important stages of her theorizing.
The initial stage when a model of communicative competence was developed is
followed by a gradual transition period which finally resulted in the
theory of the dialogic action game as a mixed game or the Mixed Game Model.
The articles cover a wide range of linguistic topics including, among
others, speech act theory, lexical semantics, utterance grammar, emotions,
the media, rhetoric and institutional communication. Editorial
introductions give further information on the origin and theoretical
background of the articles included.