KEY ISSUES IN THIS CHAPTER

This chapter explores the text-worlds created by a range of expressions of attitude in discourse. Over the course of the next few chapters, the processes by which readers and hearers conceptualise the varying attitudes of writers and speakers will be examined in relation to a wide range of texts. To begin, this chapter looks at the ways in which wishes, wants and desires are communicated in the discourse-world and the nature of the resulting text-worlds their expression creates. The glamorous fantasy worlds contained in an interview from a best-selling celebrity magazine are analysed in order to explore the discourse features which generate them in more detail. The chapter also investigates the text-worlds which result from expressions of obligation or duty in discourse and the persuasive effects such language often has on its recipients in the discourse-world. Some extracts from a car-owner's manual and from a magazine advice column are examined here and the fine line between different types of attitudes and their associated text-worlds is explored. The ontological boundaries and varying conceptual distances between discourse-worlds and their related text-worlds continue to be of interest over the coming pages.