Context and Contexts: Parts Meet Whole?

✍ Scribed by Anita Fetzer (ed.), Etsuko Oishi (ed.)

• Publisher: John Benjamins
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 248
• Series: Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 209
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book departs from the premise that context represents a complex relational configuration which can no longer be conceived as an analytic prime but rather requires a parts-whole perspective to capture its inherent dynamism. The edited volume presents a collection of papers which examine the connectedness between context, contextualization and entextualization. They address the questions how meaning and speech acts are situated in context, how both are influenced by context, how context influences speech acts and meaning, how context is imported into the discourse, and how context is entextualized in discourse. The papers cover institutional and non-institutional contexts, the language of Greek laws, political discourse, confrontational media discourse and task-oriented face-to-face and back-to-back interactions. They reflect current moves in pragmatics and discourse analysis to cross disciplinary and methodological boundaries by integrating relevant premises and insights, in particular cognition, adaptive action, negotiation of meaning, sequentiality, recipient design and genre.

✦ Table of Contents

Context and Contexts......Page 2
Editorial page......Page 3
Title page......Page 4
LCC data......Page 5
Table of contents......Page 6
Acknowledgements......Page 8
1. Pragmatics and context......Page 10
2. Context and contexts......Page 11
3. The contributions......Page 14
References......Page 16
Situated meaning in context......Page 18
1. Introduction......Page 20
2. Methodology......Page 21
3.1 Law......Page 22
3.2 Speech acts......Page 23
3.3 Context......Page 24
3.4 Genre......Page 26
4.1 Tense......Page 27
4.2 Aspect......Page 28
4.3 Modality......Page 29
4.4 Conditionals in Greek......Page 30
5. Modality, aspect and tense in Greek laws......Page 31
5.1 Modality......Page 32
5.2 Aspect......Page 34
5.3 Tense......Page 35
5.4 Statistical data......Page 36
6. Discussion......Page 39
7. Conclusions......Page 44
References......Page 45
Appendix......Page 47
1. Introduction......Page 50
2. Multilayered model of context......Page 52
3. Contextualization and entextualization......Page 57
4. Analyses......Page 60
4.1 Choice analysis: Structure of the media interview......Page 62
4.2 Chain analysis: Increasing the rhetoric against Colombia......Page 64
References......Page 71
1. Introduction......Page 76
2. Perspectives on context......Page 77
3. The media interview......Page 81
4. Overview and data......Page 83
5. Interactional behaviour of the participants......Page 84
6. Socially significant relationships in the interviews......Page 89
7. Conclusions......Page 95
References......Page 97
Deixis in context......Page 100
1. Introduction......Page 102
2.1 Two term systems: Polish......Page 106
2.2 Three term systems: Spanish......Page 107
3. Constructing spatial context in the conversational dyad......Page 108
3.1 Face-to-face conversations......Page 110
3.2 Face-to-back: Constructing the hearer-side space......Page 111
4. Constructing context to coordinate manual activities......Page 112
4.2 The construction of shared spaces in a face-to-face situation......Page 113
4.3 Explicit and implicit: Use in different languages......Page 114
5.1 From space to time: The activity of recontextualizing......Page 115
5.2 The dynamics of contextualization: From shared to unshared spaces......Page 118
6. Parts meet whole: State of the art and outlook......Page 119
References......Page 121
1. Introduction......Page 124
2. Context and context importation......Page 126
2.1 Social and sociocultural context......Page 127
2.2 Linguistic context......Page 128
2.3 Cognitive context......Page 129
2.4 Context invocation and context importation......Page 130
3. Political discourse in context......Page 131
3.1 Data......Page 132
3.2 Genre-specific analysis......Page 134
4. Place deixis: Here and there......Page 137
4.1 Here in context......Page 139
4.2 There in context......Page 145
4.3 Here and there in political discourse......Page 150
References......Page 152
Appendix......Page 154
1. Introduction......Page 156
2. Context......Page 157
4. Contrast and the contrastive adverbial connective (tam) tersine......Page 159
4.1 Horn’s Q-based and R-based implicature and negation......Page 162
4.2 Descriptive vs. metalinguistic negation......Page 164
5. The adverbial (tam) tersine in discourse context......Page 166
6. The effect of the tripartite discourse structure on cognitive context......Page 169
7. The motivation for refutation-rectification pairs: The use of the adverb in the argument mode......Page 171
References......Page 175
Communicative action in context......Page 178
1. Introduction......Page 180
2. Context......Page 181
3. The force of words......Page 182
4. Situations and speech acts......Page 183
5. On ‘seeing’ a situation......Page 184
6. Politics, diplomacy and conversation......Page 185
7. Speech acts and (con)text......Page 187
8. Conclusion......Page 188
References......Page 189
1. Introduction......Page 190
2.1 A model of illocutionary acts......Page 191
2.2 How can performing an illocutionary act be successful?......Page 195
3.1 Conventionality of illocutionary acts and instances of performing illocutionary acts......Page 197
3.2 Strength of illocutionary acts......Page 200
4.1 The meaning-force distinction......Page 203
4.2 Conventionality of illocutionary acts......Page 205
5. How are illocutionary acts situated?......Page 209
References......Page 211
1. Introduction......Page 214
2.1 From external environment to external context......Page 216
2.2 The external context as context of reference......Page 218
2.3 From context of reference to learning context......Page 220
2.5 Acquired skills and action selection......Page 223
2.6 From external to internalized context......Page 224
2.7 Recapitulation......Page 225
2.8 Some implications......Page 228
3. Context and linguistic action......Page 229
3.1 Action selection: What a higher level of complexity entails......Page 230
3.2 Processes involved in context construction: A higher level of complexity......Page 232
3.3 Context construction and the comprehension skills issue......Page 236
4. Conclusion......Page 240
Acknowledgements......Page 241
References......Page 242
Subject index......Page 244
Author index......Page 248