Abstract Within a general theory of communicative contexts and their influence on the structures, production and comprehension of discourse, this article focuses on the crucial, but often ignored, role of the knowledge of speakers about the knowledge of the recipients, earlier studied as ‘common ground’. For communicative contexts to influence the structures of discourse, it is assumed that participants must have a mental model of that situation, including this specific knowledge controlling all epistemic aspects of discourse. Such knowledge must be inferred from previous (parts of) discourse, prior discourse and communication or an ongoing analysis of the communicative situation. A detailed analysis of a speech of former Prime Minister of the UK, David Cameron, on refugees shows that the general epistemic conditions of appropriate assertions in such speeches require a much more sophisticated theoretical and analytical approach than in classical pragmatics.

Resumen Dentro de una teoría general de contextos comunicativos y su influencia en las estructuras producción y comprensión del discurso, este artículo se centra en el papel crucial, pero a menudo ignorado, del conocimiento de los hablantes sobre el conocimiento de los receptores, que solía estudiarse como ‘terreno común’. Para que los contextos comunicativos influyan en las estructuras del discurso, se supone que los participantes deben tener un modelo mental de esa situación, incluyendo este conocimiento específico que controla todos los aspectos epistémicos del discurso. Tal conocimiento debe inferirse de (partes del) discurso existente, del discurso y comunicación previa o del análisis de la situación comunicativa en curso. Un análisis detallado de un discurso del ex primer ministro del Reino Unido, David Cameron, sobre los refugiados muestra que las condiciones epistémicas generales de las afirmaciones apropiadas en tales discursos requieren un enfoque teórico y analítico mucho más sofisticado que en la pragmática clásica.

This article reports an investigation on the cognitive and linguistic mechanisms involved in knowledge management during discourse production of individuals with Alzheimer disease (AD). Two discourse variables were examined, incomplete propositions and repeated propositions. Differences between controls and participants with AD were found concerning the presence of incomplete propositions in a non-informative prompted task. Findings obtained with the informative prompted task suggested that knowledge management was more preserved in the early stage than in the later stage of AD. The majority of the neuropsychological data obtained in this study correlated with the presence of incomplete propositions. The discussion debated on whether this discourse deficit can be attributed to an impaired ability to manage knowledge provided in the context of communication.