WEEK 3: context Flashcards
What is context?
Internal selection of circumstances represented in the mind - our mind chooses what is important in the interpretation of the message
What types of context do we have? What they signify?
- Extralinguistic context
- external factors that influence communicational behaviour in a given situation
- context of culture and situation - Linguistic context
- context inside the discourse, refers to connection between the words, phrases, sentences,…
What are the types of extralinguistic context?
- Singular situational
- utterance has meaning only in given context and no other (Pooh discovered North Pole) - Typical situational
-utterance which may violate rules of given language, acquires specific situation in which it is pronounced
(MALE SEEKS WOMAN) - Social historical
- context of culture, change in social and historical context
- leads to change in text interpretation
How to analyse context?
- Setting
- Time and aspect
- Mode (medium)
- Participants
- Topic/ themes
- Purpose
- Dynamics
- Genre
What is conventionalization? What is it based on?
Implicit contract in a community of language variety users that certain expressions will mean certain things when used in certain combination under certain social conditions
Based on:
Evaluative attitudes - better, worse
Language change in diachrony - depends on historical development of a language, changes in meaning
What is standard language?
Prescriptive, idealized variety of a language, considered dominant/prestige variety within language
(Theory)
What is language variation?
It is the language in practice
What is a dialect?
Speech habits characteristic of geographical area or region, or specific social group
What are the types of dialect?
- Regional
- Sociolect
- Ethnolect
and accent + idiolect
