TOPIC CONTROL IN THE MARKET DISCOURSE

Abstract

Human interactions such as between a trader and a customer, involve the process of acting towards a collective goal.

Thus, traders and customers cooperate in order to buy from and sell to each other. This, I may call, the cooperative joint

action whose achievement is largely dependent on the mutual participation and intimate involvement of the transacting

partners. The transacting parties have an innate driving force that motivates them to behave and act in a certain way.

Arrazola (1998: p.21) captures this scenario when he says that: an intended collective goal in this sense is based on the

goal holding agents interacting in order to satisfy their content of the intention by acting together. I note that transacting

partners in the market place have the content of the collective sense and are committed to their intimate goal they wish

to achieve. The acting together can be said to be mutual if there is commitment through their individual contribution to

the mutual goal at hand.