Discoursewide

Discoursewide is an adjective describing phenomena, analyses, or constraints that extend across an entire discourse rather than being confined to a single sentence or clause. In linguistics and discourse analysis, discoursewide phenomena include long-distance anaphora resolution, topic continuity, and coherence relations that organize the text from introduction to conclusion.

These phenomena require consideration of information structure and discourse context beyond sentence boundaries. For example, pronouns linked to antecedents across several sentences; discourse markers signaling relations across the whole text; and lexical repetition used to reinforce a global theme. Discoursewide concerns also cover how information is distributed across discourse segments to maintain a coherent overall message.

Discoursewide refers to global features versus local ones. Researchers may label features as discoursewide when observable across multiple sentences, sections, or even chapters. Methods used to study them include corpus analysis, discourse representation theory, and Rhetorical Structure Theory to model the global organization and coherence of a text.

Applications of discoursewide concepts appear in writing assistance, readability assessment, and natural language processing. In tasks such as summarization and dialogue systems, maintaining coherence and consistency across turns and across paragraphs is a discoursewide concern that affects performance and user experience.

Limitations include inconsistent usage across disciplines and contexts. The term is often descriptive rather than a formal, universally standardized technical category, which can lead to varying interpretations depending on the analytical framework.