In more recent times, discourse analysis, often called critical discourse analysis, has expanded both in depth and in scope. It has become clear that discourse does not only serve specific goals, but plays an active role in framing our very understanding of life and reality. Thus, the perspective is no longer personal, sender to receiver and vice versa, but also (cross)cultural [...].
In her article "Grice`s Conversational Maxims in Intercultural Communication: from a Discourse-Based Approach to Communication Ethics" (this volume), Sorina Chiper says: "What I find missing in textbooks of intercultural communication is analyses of actual chunks of conversation". She is certainly not the only researcher to feel this need and her book deserves praise for supplying exactly that. Here are specific and detailed analyses of specific real-life communication and the analyses involve a range of aspects from meaning and connotation to ideology, politics and economy.
Steen Schousboe Emeritus, Department of English, University of Copenhagen
)
