Lecture 5

Co-text and Context

definitions

Co-text refers the words or sentences surrounding any piece of written (or spoken) text (linguistic context) (Malinowskis context of utterance) Context is the whole situation in which an utterance is made (i.e. who is addressing whom, whether fomally or informally, why, for what purpose, when, where, etc) (extra-linguistic context) (Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar) (Malinowskis context of situation) The two however overlap and intertwine.

A story as context and co-text

In the transpositional the co-text and the context is based on a written/oral story. Why make a story the base for context? Story-telling is one of the most familiar of all forms of human activity... We have this ability to bring up to our conscious perception the images of things which are not actually in front of our eyes. (Booker 2004:1)

Pedagogical value

The child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim (1975) stated: the most difficult task in raising a child is helping him to find meaning in lifeRegarding this task, nothing is more important than the impact of parents and others who take care of the child; the second in importance is our cultural heritage, . When children are young, it is literature that carries such information best.(pp.3-4) Fairy tales offer new dimensions to the childs imagination which would be difficult for him to discover as truly on his own.(p7)
Weinrich (2004) states: In fact it is in fairy stories that the child gets to know the narrated world: through fairy stories he notes for the first time that another world exists that is different from the one that immediately surrounds him, [] and through the fairy story he learns to participate in a world which is not his own lived-in world. (trans. R. Coles.)

What some writers have to say about stories .

Settings may be the first element to present itself to the readers imagination and the last to leave his memory (Elizabeth Brown) You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate (Flannery OConnor) We listen to a story with greater zest when there are others present at its narration beside ourselves. (E.A.Poe) (classroom context)

Child of the pure unclouded brow And dreaming eyes of wonder! Though time be fleet, and I and thou Are half a life asunder, Thy loving smile will surely hail The love-gift of a fairy-tale.
C.L.Dodgson (Lewis Carroll, in Through the Looking-Glass)

Why a story is a context

A story has characters (who?) It has places (where?) It has a time (when?) It has events developed in a plot (what?) It provides reasons (why?) It is a text (written or oral) con-text/co-text/contents .. everything that goes together with the text the whole situation Malinowskis context of situation stories provide MEANINGFUL contexts Context :origin = ME from L. contextus, from con together + texere to weave (OCD)

examples of meaningful contexts

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A (transposed) story provides a meaningful context in which children can learn more easily For example: numbers in Unit 2 (the game of hide-andseek) colours and animals (Unit 4)(pub names) offering and requesting (Unit 8) (having tea)

The co-text (linguistic)

The genre: a short story (for adults? For children?) expectations we bring to the text people/place/time/plot . Once upon a time ... means more than an adverbial of time The narrator in Teachers Guide is the storyteller and helps the listener to raise his expectations: . First well meet some English people (p.40) Today Malcolmson, Susie and Deirdre are together in a park. (They) are playing a game. Guess the game! (p.45) . etc.etc.

Out-of-context

The following examples are out-of-context They are intelligible because we can decode semantically but they are uninterpretable. We must refer elswhere, to its context in the sense of what has gone before (or what will come after) Malcolmson . What have you done? Youll easily find another berth. Cant we have The Golden Shot? Ridiculous, he said, of course it is. The Sunday afternoons had begun then. That poor Japanese man said Dierdre. He rang the bell. In? The smile was still there.

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A text

OCD: co-text: the parts that immediately precede or follow a word or passage and clarify its meaning. Co-text = going with the text but what is a text? A text is a basic unit of meaning in language. A text is a unit of language in use. A text has texture the fact that it functions as a UNITY with respect to its environment. (Halliday and Hasan:1976)) A text is someone addressing someone else about something, somewhere, for some reason and in some way (Taylor:1998)

What linguists say about context

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We must remember that language is rooted in the ordinary events of everyday and in ordinary mens usage. (Malinowski:1923).
Language is to be studied as a form of human living, rather than merely a set of arbitrary signs and signals. (Firth: 1957) Language is not realised in the abstract: it is realised as the activity of people in situations. (Halliday:1976) Every communicative act (text of some kind) takes place in a situational and cultural context.All texts are produced and received within a set of circumstances of time, place, purpose.They involve various persons in various roles and are conveyed in a particular way (spoken, written, faxed, etc.) (Taylor:1998)

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The context

Context is the whole situation in which an utterance is made (i.e. who is addressing whom, whether fomally or informally, why, for what purpose, when, where, etc) (extra-linguistic context) (Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar)

We can think of two contexts: 1. the context of the (transposed) story itself: a fictional context 2. the context in which the story is presented: a real context

The transposed fictional context

Place (where?): London Time (when?): a Sunday afternoon in late October Characters (who?): Malcomson and his family The events: (what?) Playing in the park, meeting an Irishman and Richard, receiving and sending a letter.

The real context

Place: a classroom in a primary school Time: the lesson People: the class (English) teacher and the pupils Events: steps in learning English (the Units)
Intertwining the fictional and real contexts Letty!