Discourse Patterns in First Language Use at Hcme and Second Language Learning at School: an Ethnographic Approach

Literature / 50

2.3.4 Context and meaning.

The shift of interest in linguistics towards pragmatics can be seen as
the result of a progressive dissatisfaction with units of analysis in the
study of language. From phoneme to word, from utterance to discourse, the
trend is clearly pointing to the importance of context for the
interpretation of meaning.

Context was virtually absent in Saussure^,s 'speaking circuit', appeared in
the behaviourist model of Bloomfield, but only to include objects or
situations directly relevant to the elicitation of speech. It is the
functionalist∕systemicist tradition (Gardiner, Firth, Jacobson, Halliday),
significantly close to the anthropological influence of Malinowski, which
insists that context, including the irrelevant details which are not
selected by the speakers, gives the ultimate meaning to otherwise
unintelligible exchanges:

... the real linguistic fact is the full utterance within the context
of situation. (Malinowski,1935)

... elements to be included in the analysis of context of situation:
cultural context, types of linguistic discourse, personal
interchanges, and types of speech functions. (Firth,1930)

(Both quoted in Bailey,1985:4-5)

For more recent approaches focusing on communicative competence,

context ... is not simply some additional details that one attaches
to findings about language; rather context provides the very
vantage point from which to observe and study language. (Zebroski,
1982:55)

Pragmatics and ethnography of communication study the rules of language
use in context (Bates,1976) and the background assumptions of shared
experience (Intersubjectivity - Rommetveit,1978; linguistic competence
necessarily entailing social competence - Hymes 1974) that make
communication possible: '... a conversational context ... specifies what can
be taken for granted in making the next speech act' (Karttunen,1977,
quoted in Werth, 1981:131).

<<   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   >>

More intriguing information