discourse

n. A discourse (also text) is a series of connected sentences that have internal organization and are linked with cohesion devices. Discourse may be oral or written; different types of discourses include communication contexts such as conversations, lectures, interviews, letters, poems, and novels. Discourse processing involves not only extracting meaning from individual sentences or utterances, but also making connections between those sentences or utterances, by relying on cues that transcend individual sentences. One way to find such connections is through the identification of the referents for anaphors in a text - for example, the nouns to which pronouns in a discourse might refer. Inferences also play a key role in discourse processing. For example, in a conversation about picnic supplies, the mention of a container may lead to a different inference about the nature of the container than in a conversation about transatlantic relocation services.     

- emf