Notes on 'Text and Context: Aspects of Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective'

TENTANDA DA VIA - Aspects of Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective

About the Authors

M.A.K. Halliday

• Born in Leeds, England, in 1925.

• BA in Chinese language and literature from London University.

• Studied linguistics in China (Peking University and Lingnan University, Canton) and Cambridge (PhD, 1955).

• Held positions at Cambridge and Edinburgh before becoming Director of the Communication Research Centre at University College London in 1963.

• Directed research projects including Linguistic Properties of Scientific English and Linguistics and English Teaching (produced Breakthrough to Literacy and Language in Use).

• Professor of General Linguistics at University College London until 1970.

• Professor of Linguistics at the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle (1973-1975).

• Head of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Sydney (from 1976).

• Consultant to the Curriculum Development Centre's Language Development Project (1976-1978).

• Taught at Linguistic Society of America's summer Linguistic Institutes.

• Visiting professorships at Yale, Brown, UC Irvine, and the University of Nairobi.

• Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences at Stanford, California (1972-73).

• Honorary doctorate at the University of Nancy, France (1969).

• David H. Russell Award for Distinguished Research in the Teaching of English from the National Council of Teachers of English (USA) in 1981.

• Research interests: Semantics and grammar of modern English, language development in early childhood, text linguistics, register variation, educational applications of linguistics, and artificial intelligence (Penman project at ISI, USC).

Ruqaiya Hasan

• Born in India.

• BA from Allahabad University in English Literature, Education, and History.

• MA in English Literature from the University of Punjab, Lahore.

• PhD in Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh.

• Taught at the University of Edinburgh, University College London, and visiting scholar at various universities.

• Started the Nuffield Child Language Survey at Leeds University in 1964.

• Research Fellow in the Nuffield Programme in Linguistics and English Teaching at University College London.

• Joined Bernstein's Sociolinguistics Research Unit at the University of London Institute of Education.

• Associate Professor in Linguistics at Macquarie University.

• Co-authored Cohesion in English (1976) with M.A.K. Halliday.

Foreword

Educational interest in language has historical roots in rhetoric and grammar studies from the Greeks to modern English studies. Recurring debates focus on the value of explicit knowledge about language for learners. It is important to look at language as an aspect of human experience and as a fundamental resource in building human experience.

The Western intellectual tradition tends to dissociate language and experience, viewing language as a neutral conduit for experience. Books in this series argue that language is part of experience and involved in constructing and organizing it, thus language is never neutral and is deeply implicated in building meaning. Views on teaching about language depend on one's perspective on the relationship between language and experience.

Discussions about teaching language can sometimes be theoretically ill-founded and perpetuate unhelpful myths, especially those that dissociate language from meaning or form from content. When such myths apply, teaching about language becomes teaching grammatical rules, degenerating into the pursuit of parts of speech and the parsing of isolated sentences.

Chapter 1: Context of Situation

Introduction

The study of language is approached from a social perspective, focusing on social functions that determine language characteristics and evolution.

Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective

The term 'social-semiotic' represents an ideology or intellectual stance in the study of language. Semiotics derives from the concept of the sign, tracing back to the Stoic philosophers' terms semainon, semainomenon ('signifier, signified') in ancient Greek linguistics (3rd-2nd century BC). The Stoics developed an advanced theory of the linguistic sign, which was later elaborated by Ferdinand de Saussure.

Semiotics is defined as the general study of signs, but it often remains an atomistic concept, where the sign is seen as an isolate before being related to other signs. Even Saussure's work retains this atomistic conception despite emphasizing language as a set of relationships. Thus we should consider semiotics as the study of sign systems, focusing on meaning in its most general sense.

Linguistics is an aspect of semiotics and the study of meaning. Many modes of meaning exist outside language, including art forms (painting, sculpture, music, dance) and cultural behaviors (modes of exchange, dress, family structures). A culture can be defined as a set of interrelated semiotic systems or systems of meaning.

To explain this general notion, it is useful to think of systems of meaning operating through an external form of output (a sign) but as networks of relationships rather than sets of individual things. Semiotics defines the perspective from which we view language: as one of many systems of meaning constituting human culture.

The term social suggests two simultaneous meanings:

1. Social as the social system, synonymous with culture. Therefore, 'social-semiotic' refers to the definition of a social system or culture as a system of meanings.

2. Social indicates a focus on the relationships between language and social structure, with social structure as an aspect of the social system.

When considering realities beyond language that language serves to express, various interpretative modes exist. Some linguists (e.g., Chomsky, 1957; Lamb, 1966) favor a psychological interpretation, explaining language in terms of human mind or brain processes. Others might use psychoanalytic or aesthetic perspectives. Our perspective primarily adopts a social lens to explain linguistic phenomena by relating language to social structure.

This social angle is significant, especially for educational questions, and has been neglected in language education discussions. Learning is fundamentally a social process occurring within social institutions like classrooms and schools. Knowledge is transmitted through social contexts and relationships (parent-child, teacher-pupil, classmates), defined by the culture's value systems and ideology. Words exchanged in these contexts derive meaning from embedded activities, which are social activities with social agencies and goals.

Language, Context, and Text

Understanding language involves studying texts. The terms Context and Text highlight the interconnectedness of these aspects. Con-text refers to what accompanies the text, extending beyond words to the non-verbal environment in which a text unfolds, bridging the text and its situation. The focus remains on the situation as the context in which texts occur and are interpreted.

Context precedes text. There was a theoretical consideration of context before text. Malinowski's theory of the context of situation is important (1923, 1935).

Malinowski and the Notion of Context of Situation

Malinowski conducted research in the Trobriand Islands, where inhabitants lived by fishing and gardening and spoke Kiriwinian. After learning the language, he faced the problem of interpreting and explaining his cultural insights to English-speaking readers. He had Kiriwinian texts from discussions with the Trobrianders and needed to render them intelligibly in English.

Malinowski used various methods, including free translation (intelligible but lacking cultural context) and literal translation (mimicking the original but unintelligible). His primary technique was providing extended commentary that placed the text in its living environment. Before Malinowski defined it, 'context' meant the words and sentences surrounding the sentence being examined. Malinowski needed a term including the verbal environment and the situation in which the text was uttered, coining the term Context of Situation (Malinowski, 1923). This term represents the environment of the text.

For example, Malinowski studied the language used during fishing expeditions, where islanders communicated constantly as they navigated canoes through reefs. Understanding this language required knowledge of the ongoing events. Malinowski provided a detailed account of the fishing expedition, the return of the canoes, and the interactions between people in the boats and on the shore.

Beyond the immediate environment, Malinowski emphasized the importance of providing the total cultural background. Linguistic interactions involve not only immediate sights and sounds but also the cultural history, practices, and their cultural significance. These factors influence meaning interpretation. Thus, Malinowski introduced the concepts of Context of Situation and Context of Culture, both necessary for adequate text understanding.

Some texts were pragmatic, directly furthering a specific activity through language, like repairing a car. Other texts, like narratives, were not directly related to the immediate situation. While their subject matter was independent of the surroundings, these narratives were functional, serving a creative purpose in the society and having their pragmatic context. Storytelling related to the group's solidarity and well-being. Settings were often associated with storytellers, places, or circumstances. There was still a context of situation, albeit not as a direct relation between the narrative line and immediate surroundings.

Initially, Malinowski believed that only 'primitive' languages required the context of situation, but he later realized this was an error. He stated that the difference between savage and abstract language use is only a matter of degree. Ultimately, all word meaning is derived from bodily experience (Malinowski, 1935, vol.2, p. 58).

The general notion of the context of situation is necessary for understanding English or any other major language, as it is for understanding Kiriwinian. The specific cultural contexts differ, but the principle that all language must be understood in its context of situation remains valid across communities and developmental stages.

Malinowski aimed to explain the culture, becoming deeply interested in language as a subject in its own right. His young colleague J.R. Firth, later the first professor of general linguistics in a British university, adopted Malinowski's notion of the context of situation and integrated it into his linguistic theory. Firth (1935) viewed all linguistics as the study of meaning and all meaning as function in a context.

Firth found Malinowski's conception of the context of situation not general enough for linguistic theory. Malinowski focused on specific texts, so his concept of context was designed to elucidate particular instances of language use. Firth needed a more abstract concept that could be built into a general linguistic theory, rather than an audio-video representation of the linguistic event. He set up a framework for describing the context of situation to study texts as part of a general linguistic theory.

Firth's Description of Context of Situation

Firth’s headings were as follows:

• Participants: Persons and personalities, corresponding to sociological statuses and roles.

• Action: What the participants are doing, including verbal and non-verbal action.

• Relevant Features: Surrounding objects and events bearing on what is going on.

• Effects: Changes brought about by the participants' verbal action.

Firth outlined this framework in 1950. An application can be found in T.F. Mitchell's study of the 'language of buying and selling' in North Africa (Mitchell, 1957). Mitchell illustrates Firth’s ideas regarding the nature of the context of situation of a text. Since then, linguists have proposed various schemas for characterizing the situation of a text.

Dell Hymes and the Ethnography of Communication

Dell Hymes (1967) proposed a set of concepts for describing the context of situation, similar to those of Firth:

• Form and content of the message

• Setting

• Participants

• Intent and effect of the communication

• Key

• Medium

• Genre

• Norms of interaction

Hymes' work renewed interest in how language is used differently across cultures, the value placed on speech, and various rhetorical modes.

Determining the Most Appropriate Model of the Context of Situation

People generally understand each other. Failures do occur, but the successes are remarkable. How do we explain this success?

We know what the other person is going to say; we have an idea of what is coming next and are seldom totally surprised. Predictions are made unconsciously about what the other person will say next, which aids understanding. The linguist is concerned with how we make these predictions.

Predictions come from the context of situation. The situation in which linguistic interaction occurs provides information about meanings being exchanged. The context of situation enables us to make predictions about meanings that help explain how people interact.

Chapter 2 will suggest a framework for describing the context of situation, linking it to the expectations people have of what others are likely to say. Before we do that, we should define what we mean by text.

What a Text Is

Text is functional language doing a job in a context, unlike isolated words or sentences. It is living language playing a part in a context of situation and can be spoken, written, or in any other medium.

While texts appear to be made of words and sentences, they are made of meanings expressed or coded in words and structures, which are then coded in sounds or written symbols. A text is a semantic unit and not merely a bigger sentence.

A theory of text is not simply an extension of grammatical theory, and we cannot set up formal systems for defining a text. Due to its nature as a semantic entity, a text must be considered as both a product and a process. The text is an output that can be recorded and studied, having a structure that can be systematically represented. It is also a continuous process of semantic choice, a movement in the network of meaning potential, with each choice shaping the next one.

One description method is exegesis, a commentary revealing the dynamic unfolding of a text as a process. It requires looking beyond words and structures to interpret the text in relation to the language. The commentary doesn't always embody a conception of the linguistic system behind the text, yet the system is the basis of the text. We need a way to describe systems of language that could be conceivably used by people. The problem for linguistics is to combine conceptions of texts as products and processes and relate them to the linguistic system behind them.

From a social-semiotic perspective, text in its 'process' may be viewed as an interactive event and a social exchange of meanings. The fundamental form of a text is that of dialogue, interaction between speakers. Ultimately, every kind of text in every language is meaningful because it relates to interaction among speakers, especially ordinary, everyday spontaneous conversation. That is the context where language resources are fully exploited, where people improvise and in which changes in the system take place. Unconscious change and development often occur in natural conversational texts, interpersonal exchanges of meaning.

A text is an object (such as a recognized great poem) and an instance of social meaning in a context of situation. It is a product of its environment and a continuous process of choices in meaning. It can be represented as multiple paths through the networks that constitute the linguistic system. This characterization should enable us to describe specific examples.

Meanings created by the social system are exchanged in the form of text. A text is an instance of the process and product of social meaning in a context of situation. The context of situation is encapsulated in the text through a systematic relationship between the social environment and the functional organization of language. Both text and context are considered as 'modes of meaning'.

To characterize a text in its relation to its context of situation, and to derive the text from the situation, we examine how people predict the kinds of meaning being exchanged.

The Three Features of the Context of Situation

Brief illustrations of short English texts, along with descriptions of their contexts of situation, are provided. The descriptions are based on a conceptual framework with three headings: field, tenor, and mode used to interpret the social context of a text.

1. Field of Discourse: What is happening? The nature of the social action taking place, in which language is an essential component.

2. Tenor of Discourse: Who is taking part? The nature of the participants, their statuses and roles. The role relationships among the participants, including permanent and temporary relationships, speech roles, and clusters of socially significant relationships.

3. Mode of Discourse: What part is the language playing? What the participants expect the language to do for them. The symbolic organization of the text, its status, and its function in the context, including the channel (spoken, written, or a combination) and the rhetorical mode (persuasive, expository, didactic).
   

In Chapter 3, it is explained why this framework for representing the 'situation' of a text is set up. The aim is to consciously state and interpret what processes go on unconsciously. In this instance, the process is producing and understanding text in a context of situation, which is a distinctive form of activity in life.

Chapter 2: Functions of Language

Introduction

The function of language can be viewed as ways of understanding how people use it. People achieve different aims through talking, writing, listening, and reading. Various scholars have tried to list and classify these aims and purposes.

Classifications of linguistic functions exist. Malinowski (1923) classified the functions of language into pragmatic and magical categories:

• Pragmatic: Practical uses of language, subdivided into active and narrative.

• Magical: Ritual or magical uses associated with ceremonial or religious activities.

Karl Buhler (1934), an Austrian psychologist, classified language functions from the individual's standpoint into:

• Expressive language: Oriented toward the speaker.

• Conative language: Oriented toward the addressee.

• Representational language: Oriented toward anything other than the speaker or addressee.

Buhler's framework is based on Plato's distinctions of first, second, and third person and is derived from rhetorical grammar.