Context
Context
Definitions
Gee
Context is “the totality of conditions under which discourse is being produced, circulated
and interpreted” Blommaert (2005, p. 251)
Context is “the mental models and representations speakers use to make their contribution
appropriate to the situation in which they find themselves”. Van Dijk (2009)
Types
According to DeVito (2010), contexts have four aspects: physical context, the social context,
social-psychological context and temporal context. However, according to Jinadu (2006),
four types of relevant contexts that are often identified by discourse analysts are situational
context, social context, cognitive context and cultural context. Haliday claimed that context
has only two aspects context of culture and context of situation
The context of culture is what the members of a community can mean in cultural
terms; that is, we interpret culture as a system of higher-level meanings (see
Halliday, 1978)
Situational context is the part of a discourse that surrounds a language unit and helps
to determine its interpretation. People will know how to interpret what someone
says from the situation they are in.
'We are what we are because they are not what we are' (Tajfel & Forgas 1981:124)
It is language that gives us the tools to construct and reshape our identities. In their positioning theory