-
The Theory of Context
Context
(in
language use)
——
the relevant
constraints of the communicative situation that
influence language use,
language
variation and discourse.
Structural ambiguity:
?
?
?
?
you are holding a green light bulb.
you have a green light to
drive your car.
you can go
ahead with the project.
your body has a green glow.
Sherlock observed the man
by using binoculars;
Sherlock observed a man who was holding
binoculars.
the context and
the speaker's intent
A
sentence is an abstract entity
—
a string of words divorced
from non-linguistic
context
—
as opposed to an
utterance
, which is a
concrete example of a speech act
in a
specific context.
The cat sat on the
mat. (
A sentence
)
“The cat sat on the mat”
,
she said.
(an unterance)
Context
may refer to:
ConTeXt, a macro package for the TeX
typesetting system
?
ConTEXT, a Windows text editor
?
Context
(language use), the relevant constraints of the
communicative
situation that influence
language use, language variation and discourse
?
1
Context (computing), the virtual
environment required to suspend a running
software program
?
Archaeological
context, an event in time which has been preserved
in the
archaeological record
?
Context
may also be used
for:
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
Context analysis, analysis of the
environment in which a business operates
Context
awareness,
ability
for
computers
to
adjust
to
the
natural
environment
Context menu, usability improvement
based on context awareness
Context
mixing, a type of data compression algorithm
Context principle, philosophy of
language
Context Sensitive Solutions,
transportation
Context theory, theory
of how environmental design and planning of new
development should relate to its
context
Contextualization, a
translation approach that is not literal;
predominantly
used in regards to Bible
translations
High context culture
Low context culture
Trama
(
context
or
flesh
), the mass of non-
hymenial tissues that composes the
mass
of a fungal fruiting
Pragmatics
is a subfield of
linguistics which studies the ways in which
context
contributes to meaning.
Pragmatics encompasses
speech act theory
,
conversational implicature
,
talk in
interaction
and
other
approaches
to
language
behavior
in
philosophy,
sociology,
and
linguistics.
It studies how the transmission of
meaning depends not only on the linguistic
knowledge (e.g. grammar, lexicon etc.)
of the speaker and listener, but also on the
context
of
the
utterance,
knowledge
about
the
status
of
those
involved,
the
inferred
intent of the
speaker, and so on. In this respect, pragmatics
explains how language
users are able to
overcome apparent ambiguity, since meaning relies
on the manner,
place, time etc. of an
utterance. Semantics
Pragmatic
competence
——
The ability to
understand another speaker's intended
meaning is called
pragmatic
competence
.
An utterance
describing pragmatic function
is
described as metapragmatic. Pragmatic awareness is
regarded as one of the most
challenging
aspects of language learning, and comes only
through experience.
[
citation
needed
]
Pragmatics
is
that
branch
of
linguistics,
which
deals
with
the
study
of
meaning,
its transmission of words by manner,
place, time, etc.
2
Traditional
View on Context
?
Bronislaw
Malinowski
——
the initiator of
context
context of situation and context of
culture
?
：
introduces the term sociological
linguistics:
the meaning of
“context”
from the sentence before
and after a particular sentence to the
relation between language (the linguistic context)
and social
environment (context of
situation).
“meaning”
is
to
be
regarded
as
a
complex
of
textual
relations,
and
phonetics,
grammar,
lexicography, and semantics (Firth
1957:192).
According
to
this
idea,
the
meaning
of
any
sentence
consists
of
the
following
five
pa
rts
：
(Firth,1991: 187-223)
(1)
The
relationship of each phoneme to its phonetic
context;
(2)
The
relationship of each lexical item to the others in
the sentence
(3)
The morphological relations of each
word;
(4)
The
sentence type of which the given sentence is an
example;
（
linguistic
environment
）
(5)
The
relationship of the sentence to its context of
situation.
（
non-linguistic
environment
）
?
Halliday
takes a
functional approach to view language as an
instrument of social interaction
greatest contribution
——
“register
语域
”
（
in
Language as
Social Semiotic
，
1978
）
“A register can be defined
as the configuration of semantic
resources that a member of a culture
typically associates with the situation
type. It is the meaning potential that is
accessible in a given
social
context.
The register is
recognizable as a particular selection
of words and structures.
In a
word,
register
is
defined
as
the
selection
of
meaning
that
constitutes
the
variety
to
which
a
text
belongs
”
(1978:111).
In the words of
Halliday, “the category of register is postulated
to account for what people do
with
their language. When we observe language activity
in the various contexts in which it takes
3
place,
we
find
differences
in
the
type
of
language
selected
as
appropriate
to
different
types
of
situation”
(Basil Hatim & Ian Mason 2001:46). That is to say,
register is the term employed for the
kind of variety which is distinguished
in terms of use.
Field
，
Tenor
，
mode
?
Dell
Hymes
（
an American
sociolinguist
）
He
concerned with what determines the appropriateness
of the utterances in particular context.
He
put
forward
the
eight
components
of
speech
situation,
which
are
usually
called
SPEAKING
model, namely,
act
situation
(setting
and
scene
which
refer
to
the
time
and
place
of
a
speech
act,
and
the
psychological setting or cultural
definition of a scene, respectively),
participants (speaker/sender,
addressor, addressee, hearer/receiver/audience),
ends(purposes/outcomes, or goals of the
discourse),
act sequences
(message form, message context),
keys
(
which
denotes
the
cues
that
establish
the
tone
of
the
speech
act),
instrumentalities
(forms and
styles of speech, including channels, oral or
written, etc),
norms(norms
of interaction, norms of interpretation, or social
rules governing the event and the
participants’
actions),
and
genres
(which
include
assorted
categories
such
as
poem,
myth,
tale,
proverb, riddle,
oration, lecture etc). In addition, he explored
the role of context in interpretation:
“The
use
of
a
linguistic
form
identifies
a
range
of
meanings.
A
context
can
support
a
range
of
meanings. When a form is
used in a context it eliminates the meanings
possible to that context other
than
those the form can signal: the context eliminates
from consideration the meanings possible to
the form other than those the context
can support (Gillian Brown& George Yule, 1987:38).
In other
words,
context
can
limit
the
range
of
possible
interpretations
as
well
as
support
the
intended
interpretation.
?
John
Lyons
the
components of context as follows:
(1)
knowledge of
role and status;
(2)
knowledge of spatial and temporal
location;
(3)
knowledge of formality level;
(4)
knowledge of
medium;
(5)
knowledge of appropriate subject
matter;
(6)
knowledge of appropriate
province(1977:574-585).
?
Sperber and
Wilson
——
Cognitive
Context
4