This three-authored chapter discusses multiple function-oriented and context-based approaches to grammar, discourse/talk and text, which gave primacy to communication, meaning, actual language use, pragmatic patterning, social and cultural issues, and/or human cognition. (New) theoretical constructs, (various) themes, (different) methodologies and data, came from functional, cognitive, critical, systemic and enunciative linguistics and sociolinguistics, as well as speech act theory, pragmatics, ethnography, anthropology, argumentation theory, social semiotics, multimodal studies, sociology, (socio)cultural and critical studies. Language was analyzed as a (spoken and written) tool, a social practice, a collective process and product, whose forms (words, expressions, clauses, sentences/utterances, discourses/text, talk and interaction) are largely explained by their multiple communicative functions, patterns of use, and social, cultural and cognitive correlates.

The topics touched on include: models of communication, situation of interaction, speaker’s vs. hearer’s perspective, referential, social and expressive meaning, iconic principles in language, politeness, social identity and power. Approaches include: speech act theory, Gricean pragmatics, ethnography of communication (Gumperz and Hymes), analysis of oral narrative (Labov), functional grammar (Dik), functional discourse grammar (Rijkhoff), discourse representation theory (Kamp), systemic functional grammar (Halliday), discourse dependent grammar (Hopper and Thompson), emergent grammar (Hopper), grammaticalization, functional-cognitive grammar (Langacker), text linguistics, enunciation theory, and critical discourse analysis.