Transcript The Context-Text Connection

The Context-Text
Connection
Lone Albrecht
HHÅ
All meaning is situated
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in a context of situation
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in a context of culture
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’Just put it beside those other ones.’
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Meaning clear or obscure?
Someone is moving house - it’s 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
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being ’who we are’
doing ’what we do’
saying ’what we say’
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Context of Situation - specified
through the register variables:
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FIELD
TENOR
MODE
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Register Variables:
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Field: experiential/ideational meaning
Tenor: interpersonal meaning
Mode: textual meaning
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Field - refers to what is going on,
including
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activity focus (nature of social activity)
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object focus (subject matter)
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Field - cont.
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Activity focus/object focus:
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Participants - NPs in S & C
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Processes - VP
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Circumstances - A & Adv
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Field - Ideational meaning
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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
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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
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Expresses a speaker’s attitudes and judgements
acting upon and with others
realised in wordings through
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mood and modality
adjectives, adverbs
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Mood
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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
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Attitude or judgement, adverbs:
Fortunately/unfortunately
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Modal verbs: the crop might be inspected; the crop
should be inspected
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Mode - refers to how language is being
used
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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
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Theme/rheme
Cohesion:
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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
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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
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Genre:
advertisement
Field:
potatoes for McDonald’s 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
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Field : ideational features
 Process: (what goes on)
 Participant: (who/what participates)
 Circumstance (under what circumstances)
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Tenor: interpersonal features
 mood & modality
 roles, attitudes
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Mode: textual/theme,
 Cohesion/theme-rheme
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THE END
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