Theoretical Framework
3.1. The Definition of context
In linguistics, different scholars own different ideas on the context. According to Oxford Advanced English-Chinese Dictionary: 1) the words that come just before and after a word,phrase or statement and help you to understand its meaning. 2) the situation in which something happens and that helps you to understand it(2004,p.361). The first meaning can be classified as linguistic context used in a narrow sense. And the second meaning can be classified as non-linguistic context used in a broad sense.
When talking about “context”, we must have a talk about Malinowski. Because he first came up with an idea of “context” and made a huge contribution to the development of modern social anthropology. He gave a specific description on the difference between context of culture and the context of situation. He figured out that the context of culture based on the social and cultural background. And one language must be deep-rooted in a given culture; conversely, the social culture is unavoidably reflected by language. The language and culture share a close relation each other. They interact and cooperated with each other. He took a notice of the extra-linguistic factors but ignore the inter-linguistic factors.
“Context can be defined as the surroundings, in the broad sense, which helps the communicators to interact with each other intelligible.” (Mey, 1993) From the definition given by Mey, we can find that Mey shares a similar
Too view language as if it were an object devoid of its social context would not be seeing language for its creation and use, language is used at its full potential when spoken, language is so important to humans, we use language to express, to think and communicate within the world we live. Language has changed over time, it is thought that at one time we had one original language that was spoken, and “as different human groups spread across the world and communicated only with each other, the original language changed in different ways in different places” (Gee, P,. & Hayes, E. (2011). pg 8), because of these changes, and socialisation of different humans, we now have many diverse human languages. Language has changed and will continue to
Taking the first concern mentioned into consideration, we can easily relate to cross-cultural researcher, Edward T. Hall’s differentiation between high-context cultures and low-context cultures.
Most people would believe that we are shaped and defined by our values and moral character. However, Malcolm Gladwell argues, in the chapter “The Power of Context, Bernie Goetz and the Rise and Fall of New York City Crime” In other words, The Power of Context is the social setting and or the environment around you and how it affects your behavior. Anticipating resistance from the reader Gladwell uses rhetorical strategies such as real life examples, controlled experiments and theories to help advance his claim and to help persuade the reader to side with his argument.
In “Scripture: Nourished by the Word (Catholic Basics: A Pastoral Ministry Series)” Ralph (2001) emphasises the importance of a contextualist approach when reading scripture. Firstly, this essay will discuss Ralph’s statement and outline the difference between a fundamental and contextual approach towards reading the Bible. Secondly, these different approaches will be demonstrated on three different examples: the Genesis’ creation accounts, the stories of miracles in the Gospel writings, and Jesus’ words towards his mother Mary just before his crucifixion. Finally, a conclusion is drawn on how a contextualist approach assists in gaining a better understanding of God.
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In her essay, “Context” (1994), Dorothy Allison explores the feelings of fear and shame she experienced as a child that continue to affect her as an adult. Allison recounts the fear she struggled with prior to having her lover come meet her family for the first time, and then she describes how her lover’s reaction to the family triggered in Allison a similar memory from her childhood. Allison examines the childhood memory and the adult circumstance, in order to show how these two different experiences, stir up in Allison the same feelings of fear and shame. This essay serves as a reminder to all readers, that one should be sensitive to the feelings of people who are related anyone who communicates in a way that seems strange or coarse. I can relate to
Contextualized language is used when talking about things that are in the here and now by infants and toddlers as well children in their preschool years. Contextualized language depends on situational cues, background knowledge of both parties, gestures, and intonation.
Language is related to culture because I believe that a language influences people’s culture and it is also the way that people express themselves in their culture. We use language to demonstrate how we see, participate in, and how we learn from the world.
Use context (e.g., the overall meaning of a sentence or paragraph; a word's position or function in a sentence) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.
Context is the background information of the article. While understanding the text, you would want to know the setting environment and the framework in order to understand the story. While reading and comprehending the text, you would want to remember this information. An example in the story could be knowing what time the author wrote the story and what major events happened then.
Context refers to the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement or idea. Particularly in speeches, context can influence the way it’s written, presented and received, it helps to put things into perspective and understand why and how a certain thing was constructed. When Obama won the 2008 presidential elections he delivered a victory speech which was heavily influenced by the context it was produced in. Obama’s speech was written and presented at around the same time, when the Iraq War and the Global Financial Crisis were going on, additionally, he was also the first black president of the United States and had personal context that was reflected in his speech. Likewise, context affected Ronald Reagan when he delivered his speech after the space shuttle disaster, a tragedy in American history. To summarise the event, they had started a teacher’s in space program in which teachers had the opportunity to go on a mission with some astronauts, a woman won the competition and got this opportunity. Unfortunately, 73 seconds in the air, the shuttle exploded, killing the teacher and the other six astronauts. Very soon after this happened, Reagan, who was president at the time, had to address the situation. He made a speech, which was greatly impacted not only by the catastrophic event and the Teachers in Space Program but also by Reagan’s past experiences in WW2 and the Cold War.
Social context is the indirect and direct influence of individuals that are in constant communication. It is basically a social environment in which people of different type lives. This environment influences the life of an individual and tells us how these people are influenced by their society i-e. a group of people sharing a same culture, tradition, religion or territory. It is all about how people of different classification differ from each other.
Key features of language include its words and their sub structures such as morphemes, graphemes and syllables at the writing level as well as reading or speaking, words, their meanings and contexts in which the words get spoken or read. Language has to be interpreted as a whole, and not just as the specific word. There must be an explicit pattern or structure. In order for language to be understood correctly, the meaning of words must be arranged in a given context. This is what constructs language; even though words are arbitrary themselves, in order to integrate as a language, they must be used in the appropriate context. This pre-established cultural context is what will enable effective communication. (Daniel Willingham, 2007, p. 1).
In the first approach, Hall explains the highly correlation between context and meaning, same expressions,
Cultural Context-high implicit meaning contents during conversation is as important as the spoken word. Legend culture is important in understanding what is being said.