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Do you think that understanding can occur in a conversation without prior knowledge of context of situation and culture?

Context of situation,

Context of culture

Context of situation

  • anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski was the first who developed the context of situation
  • work began in Trobiand Islands
  • discovered: their language (Kiriwinian) was the key to understanding the meaning of their practicies

  • language is a means of communication
  • communication tries to convey meaning
  • meaning is only achieved by context of situation and culture

Context of Situation

  • language in terms of meaning
  • importance of context of situation
  • meaning is dependent on :

-environment

-previous experience

Structures of Expectation

Contextualization Cues

  • infinite range of factors
  • serves to enhance and facilitate conversation
  • example: body posture, tone of voice, gaze direction

The Co-operative Principle

Situated Inferences

-Paul Grice

-assumption of verbal exchanges

-assumes relevant topic, clear message, and only the truth

-contextualization cues help the speaker to infere about the situation

-listeners

->cues

-> cultural background + social expectations

-> understanding

Language as a Cultural Act

-established in the minds of language users

-organizes the speaker's knowledge of the world

-predict relationship and new information

-also known as frames or schemata

  • various actions vary in various cultures
  • language users co-construct the social roles that their culture has placed upon them
  • defines the language users as members of specific discourse communities

Social Roles

''- It's so hot in here! Open the window, please."

informal language

  • sociologist Erving Goffman
  • these patterns are not newly created each time
  • but observed by the observer over time
  • they have already been seen in various contexts with various interlocutors of both similar and different genders
  • children are children because of the roles that their parents have given them
  • socially constituted roles

''- Excuse me, would it be possible to open the window, please? The room would need some fresh air."

  • narrative situation: the islanders used to gather around and tell stories

Context of situation

&

Context of culture

formal language

2 contexts of situation:

  • moment of narration
  • their stories

ConClusion

Meaning and Action

''Language has a setting... language does not exist apart from culture" (Bronislaw Malinowski)

  • why Kiriwinians said what they said and how they said it
  • and to whom in a specific situation

The context of situation is directly linked to the context of culture in which the words, beliefs and mindsets are important to achieving a mutual understanding.

  • Meaning as defined by the action of the speaker.
  • Geothe's Dr. Faust

"- In the beginning was Action!"

  • meaning is never exact
  • dependent upon time and place and situation, as well as culture

Meaning

  • meaning is created not only by what speakers say to one another
  • BUT

- what speakers do with their words

in order to respond to the demands

of their environment

  • when constructing meaning, interpretation is dependent on each person's experience and field of perception

  • system of sign vary according to your culture, and are constructed by sign-makers, usually language users in everyday interaction with each other, as well as verbal actions

  • language is only understood if we understand the conversationalists' cultures and situation

Context of Culture

"culture is jointly constructed through language in action"

-Claire Kramsch

  • exchange of information -> context of culture -> understanding

Semantic meaning of verbal conversations must be supported by pragmatic meanings in context.

Context and Co-TEXT

Gender

  • Co-Text: the words of a text are surrounded by their linguistic environment
  • Context: where the text takes place in a broader environment

  • also socially constructed in action during our everyday performance

  • patterns of small actions that become attributed to each gender over time

  • ex: shyness is attribute to females , and dominance to males

Pragmatic coherence

both are important in the identification of the meaning of the text

''Excuse me, can we order, please?"

''Coherence is created in the minds of speakers and hearers by the inferences they make based on the words they hear"

(Claire Kramsch)

the co-text ''order'' allows us to understand what is going on

The topic, the participants and the medium of an event constitute what has been called context of situation.

COntext of SItuation

&

Context of Culture

  • matter of interpretation between the speakers
  • same cultural background

Carina Ureche

Rachel Li

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