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Discourse Analysis 4

The document discusses context and its importance in discourse analysis. Context refers to the linguistic, situational and cultural circumstances surrounding a discourse. It also discusses classifications of context, speech act theory, Grice's cooperative principle and maxims, conversational implicature, and politeness.

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noora
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16 views

Discourse Analysis 4

The document discusses context and its importance in discourse analysis. Context refers to the linguistic, situational and cultural circumstances surrounding a discourse. It also discusses classifications of context, speech act theory, Grice's cooperative principle and maxims, conversational implicature, and politeness.

Uploaded by

noora
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Discourse Analysis

Assignment no:4

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Roll no: 03
Neha Noor

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What is context?
In a word, context plays a very important role in discourse analysis. A discourse and its context are in
close relationship: the discourse elaborates its context and the context helps interpret the meaning of
utterances in the discourse. The knowledge of context is a premise of the analysis of a discourse.

What is language in context?


Context in language is what surrounds a word or piece of text. In order to understand what words mean,
we have to know something about the situation where they are used. In print, a word, phrase or
sentence has other text around it. This helps the reader to understand the piece in question. In speech,
the social setting as well as the language help the listener to understand what is said.

Example
Something like: "You can take it whenever you need to" might refer to almost anything. However, if it is
said by a doctor to a patient, then the context is clear, and the listener can guess it refers to some kind
of medication. So the context is what goes with a text (written or spoken) which helps the reader (or
listener) understand the communication.

CLASSIFICATIONS OF CONTEXT
Some linguists divide context into two groups, while some insist on discussing context from three, four,
or even six dimensions. According to different circumstances mentioned in the above definitions, I
would like to divide context into linguistic context, situational context and cultural context.

 Linguistic Context
Linguistic context refers to the context within the discourse, that is, the relationship between
the words, phrases, sentences and even paragraphs. Take the word “bachelor” as an example.
We can’t understand the exact meaning of the sentence “He is a bachelor.” without the
linguistic context to make clear the exact meaning of this word.
Linguistic context can be explored from three aspects: deictic, co-text, and collocation.
 Situational Context
Situational context, or context of situation, refers to the environment, time and place, etc. in
which the discourse occurs, and also the relationship between the participants. This theory is
traditionally approached through the concept of register, which helps to clarify the
interrelationship of language with context by handling it under three basic headings: field, tenor,
and mode.
 Cultural Context
Cultural context refers to the culture, customs and background of epoch in language
communities in which the speakers participate. Language is a social phenomenon, and it is
closely tied up with the social structure and value system of society. Therefore, language cannot
avoid being influenced by all these factors like social role, social status, sex and age, etc.
Speech Act Theory
Speech act theory is a subfield of pragmatics that studies how words are used not only to present
information but also to carry out actions.

The speech act theory was introduced by Oxford philosopher J.L. Austin in How to Do Things with Words
and further developed by American philosopher J.R. Searle. It considers the degree to which utterances
are said to perform locutionary acts, illocutionary acts, and/or perlocutionary acts.

Many philosophers and linguists study speech act theory as a way to better understand human
communication.
Cooperative principle
The cooperative principle is a principle of conversation that was proposed by Grice 1975.The
cooperative principle describes how people achieve effective conversational communication in common
social situations—that is, how listeners and speakers act cooperatively and mutually accept one another
to be understood in a particular way.

Grice's maxims

Conversational implicature
In pragmatics, conversational implicature is an indirect or implicit speech act: what is meant by a
speaker's utterance that is not part of what is explicitly said. The term is also known simply as
implicature; it is the antonym (opposite) of explicature, which is an explicitly communicated assumption
What is politeness?

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