Context in linguistics: Pragmatic and discourse analytical dimensions

Abstract

This article raises some methodological issues that are currently discussed within the discourse-linguistic branch with regard to context and contextualization. Problems lie in the arbitrary way in which contexts are referred to. The author focuses on the question about what people in a given situation and social setting need to know in order to understand each other. She argues that the notion of context is outlined in sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, cultural studies, text linguistics and is also integrated in modern pragmatics and linguistic discourse analysis, which separates these approaches from formal linguistics. The article discusses the explanatory merits and limitations of contextualization, e.g., the extent to which different extralinguistic factors can be effectively used in text interpretation and meaning-making. The author's aim is to contribute to the on-going methodological debate on underspecification and overgeneration of linguistic analysis. How to indicate and to define extralinguistic aspects relevant in explanation of text meanings is a key question both in modern text linguistics and discourse linguistics. In a broader dimension, the article might contribute to evidence-based interpretation of linguistic facts. The context is discussed as a sociocultural environment of a text structure. It is stressed that in a sociolinguistic approach to meaning-making, context cannot ontologically be separated from language, for it is a fundamental part of the meanings constructed in language. Context is what turns language into a “social fact”. From that perspective, the author argues that the notions of context are built on social practice and on the understanding of the place of social actors and activities therein. This article shows that the operationalization of a context is to explain as a discursive competence of language speakers sharing social practice and cognitive framework. It is social practice that causes and affects the operationalization of relevant context aspects and thus the adequate understanding of text meanings. To operationalize context means to take into consideration features of actual practice in specific cultural, historical, political, etc. conditions. The discursive competence controls all the relevant aspects of the production and comprehension of discourse that vary with the social situation. The article stresses the continuously evolving, multi-scale and dynamic aspects of context, as well as the intrinsic unity of context and action.