THE IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE IN A SOCIAL CONTEXT

The Importance of Language in a Social context

The Importance of Language in a Social context

Introduction

In understanding the importance of context within language I would like to define and explain exactly what language encompasses. (Maybin, 2007, p.13) defines language as a feature of many types of discourse, both spoken and written. It can be found in several arenas such as general conversation, literature, advertising, news and song. Cook (2000 p.122) splits the features of language into three categories: linguistic form, semantics and pragmatics.

The importance of language in a social context

Linguistic form focuses on the phonology of words and includes language features such as patterning, repetition and emphasis. An example of language through linguistic form could be the use of homophones, i.e. words which sound the same but have the different meaning and spelling, e.g. allowed/aloud and bare/bear. Language through linguistic form is regularly found amongst advertising or in news headlines; commonly it is an effective tool to attract attention through the use of a pun.

Semantics is concerned with the meaning of words and phrases. It concentrates on the syntactic (structure) levels of words, phrases, sentences and larger units of discourse or texts.

Pragmatics is related to semantics and actually forms its basis. Pragmatics is concerned with the very same meanings of words and phrases but as dependant on the speaker, audience and context of the situation.

As can be seen from the breakdown of the features of language play, pragmatics is the key factor in relation to context. Pragmatics affect semantics and they in turn determine linguistic form.

In relation to language interpretation, context has the problem of having multiple interpretations. Rilley (2002, p.18) states that context can be defined firstly as referring to the parts of an utterance surrounding a linguistic unit that may affect both its meaning and grammatical contribution. Context can also embrace the wider spectrum of a speaker, activities or social situation. Maybin (2007, p.13) defines the contextual elements as physical surroundings, relationship between speakers, past shared experience, shared conversational goals, surrounding social events and cultural values and expectations.

The first element, physical surroundings or setting can also be referred to as 'Context of Situation'. For example, the formality of an occasion would differ greatly between a school classroom, business meeting and family mealtime.

The second element refers to the relationship between speakers, i.e. the nature of the conversation and each participant's authority or status within the relationship. For example, the conversational context between a mother and child or two business colleagues would be at a total contrast to each other. (Maybin, 2007)

The third element refers to past-shared experience and current conversational goals of the speakers. For example, in a conservation containing relaxed dialogic, e.g. two friends chatting, we would assume that the speakers would have past shared experience and conversational goals.

The fourth element refers to the social events of which the conservation is part. For example, a relaxed mode of conversation would be used between two colleagues on a lunch break, compared to the ...