The Context-Text Connection

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The Context-Text Connection

• Lone Albrecht
• HHÅ

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All meaning is situated

• in a context of situation
• in a context of culture

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Just put it beside those other ones.

• Meaning clear or obscure?
• Someone is moving house - its a carton full of
  household goods
• Meaningful within the context of situation
• Meaningful within the context of culture?

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Context of Culture - determines what we can mean
through

• being who we are
• doing what we do
• saying what we say

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Context of Situation - specified through the
register variables

• FIELD
• TENOR
• MODE

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Register Variables

• Field experiential/ideational meaning
• Tenor interpersonal meaning
• Mode textual meaning

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Field - refers to what is going on, including

• activity focus (nature of social activity)
• object focus (subject matter)

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Field - cont.

• Activity focus/object focus
• Participants - NPs in S C
• Processes - VP
• Circumstances - A Adv

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Field - Ideational meaning

• Reference to
• phenomena things
• living and non-living
• abstract and concrete
• the circumstances surrounding these happenings
  and doings
• realised in wordings through participants (N),
  processes (V) and circumstances (A)

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Tenor - refers to the social relationships
between those taking part

• Tenor interpersonal meaning
• status or power (agent roles, peer or hierarchic
  relations)
• affect (degree of like, dislike or neutrality)
• contact (frequency, duration and intimacy of
  social contact)

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Interpersonal meaning tenor of discourse

• Expresses a speakers attitudes and judgements
• acting upon and with others
• realised in wordings through
• mood and modality
• adjectives, adverbs

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Mood

• Declarative we inspect the growing plants every
  week
• Imperative Brock, get those plants inspected
  right now!
• Interrogative did you get those plants
  inspected?
• Degree of informality or formality
• Attitudinal lexis incompetent fool

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Modality

• Attitude or judgement, adverbs
  Fortunately/unfortunately
• Modal verbs the crop might be inspected the
  crop should be inspected

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Mode - refers to how language is being used

• Mode textual meaning
• Cohesion/sequencing
• The channel of communication - spoken or written
• language is being used as a mode of action or
  reflection

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Textual meaning

• Theme/rheme
• Cohesion
• lexical
• grammatical
• lexico-grammatical
• Antonymy, hyponymy

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A Text Specimen

• we supervise the planting and inspect the
  harvest. And we buy only the pick of the crop.
  Our experienced buyers look for lack of blemish,
  minimum number of eyes, pure white meaty
  interiors with firm consistency

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Analysis

• What is the topic of the text?
• Who/what kind of person produced the text? For
  whom?
• Do you think it was written or spoken?

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Answers

• Genre
• advertisement
• Field
• potatoes for McDonalds french fries
• Tenor
• Representative of McD.s or adv. Copy writer for
  McD. Writing for adult customers
• Mode
• written, as a tray liner

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Context - Text

• Field ideational features
• Process (what goes on)
• Participant (who/what participates)
• Circumstance (under what circumstances)
  
• Tenor interpersonal features
• mood modality
• roles, attitudes
• Mode textual/theme,
• Cohesion/theme-rheme

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• THE END