ABSTRACT
The function of fiction as an art form sets it apart from other uses of language, such as the lipstick article we looked at in Chapter 1. But fiction is still important as a resource for understanding the non-fictional world. Fiction texts are part of a kind of discourse which, like all discourse, takes place under specific conditions of production and consumption and both enables and constrains the people involved in it. This second chapter begins with an outline of the view of discourse as social practice to be applied to fiction. It deals with various general issues and concepts which we will need later on: discourse and subject positions in fiction; genres and the kinds of character and situation naturalized in them, constraints on change in genres, how genres are evaluated.
