ABSTRACT

Discourse production and comprehension processes are part and parcel of everyday social interaction. Discourse processes in institutions have become more interactive, faster paced, more informal, and more intertwined with other activities. It is important to understand the implications of changes for institutional functioning and for the study of discourse and communication. "Institutional contexts" potentially encompasses any kind of situation where individuals interact in institutionalized roles or about institutional topics. The discourse-production-and-comprehension tradition focuses on explaining the production and comprehension of discourse, typically by investigating the cognitive representations constructed during production and comprehension as well as the processes that give rise to them. The authors highlight three aspects of the discourse-production-and-comprehension tradition they find particularly relevant for the study of discourse in institutional settings: situation models, embodied cognition, and computational tools. Social change is a case for illustrating the link between discourse and institutions, because it is through discursive processes that seemingly rock-solid institutions or institutional arrangements become vulnerable to change.