Nurmila Awalia Putri

1185030147

6B

Weekly Report Pragmatics #2 (15 Maret 2021)

CONTEXT AND CO-TEXT

 What is context?
According to my understanding after reading PPT from Mrs. Ruminda and other
sources, context is background knowledge that is outside of a text which is shared
between speaker and hearer. Context can help the hearer to define an implied message
or interpret the speaker's intent. Because in communication, the meaning of the
speaker depends on the assumption of knowledge shared by both the speaker and the
hearer. Someone always can make assumption about other’s meaning when they
speak so it’s better to know the context in order to avoid misunderstanding.
The following are the types of context:
1. The Situational Context
In this context, there are speakers' utterances related to the things around them
during the conversation. In other words, it is an immediate setting like place, time,
materials, activity, and others for the communicative interaction. Physical gestures
are also included in the situational context. Example:
Evan: “You won’t believe me Mik, It was this big!”
Evan just saw a big mouse passed him. Then he told his friend, Mika, and he must
be making gesture like opened his hands about the width of the mouse to show her
how big it was.
2. The Background Knowledge Context
-Cultural General Context: This context refers to the general knowledge that
each person has in his mind about various areas of life. Example:
 Jeffry and Charlotte don’t seem surprised anymore when someone told them that
he/she had to wait two hours to eat at B&D Restaurant. This indicates that Jeffry
and Charlotte shared the same background knowledge about that restaurant.
-Interpersonal knowledge: This is the specific or private knowledge of the
speaker that have been previously shared.
Anya: “Who’s in the kitchen?”
Hanna: “Yeah, it’s Daniel.”
Anya: “Oh your tall and handsome brother is here.”
Hanna already introduced her brother to Anya before so Anya doesn’t surprised to
see Daniel in the kitchen. She also knows that Daniel is tall and handsome. This
indicates that Hanna shared information of Daniel before to Anya.
 What is co-text?
Co-textual context often refers as co-text is knowledge of what speakers are saying. In
other words, co-text is the linguistic scope of the word the speaker speaks. Here is a
brief example about co-text:
Hanna: “I ate at that restaurant with my husband and his cousins. The food was
great.”
Ami: “Uhm that’s good for you.”
Hanna: “Yeah and we also had premium steak, you have to try it!”
Ami: “Yup maybe later.”
Hanna as the speaker told Ami about her experience and use “we” to refer her, her
husband, and her husband’s cousins. “we” is a linguistic form (pronoun) to refer
them. Ami as the interlocutor can assume that all of them had a great time based on
the speaker utterance. Hanna has enough knowledge to tell about what she means.
 Grammatical Cohesion
-Reference: As the example above, the example of reference is “we”, “us”, “you”,
and may more to refer to something in the same text. It is called Endophoric
reference. When one referene link to other reference, it can be called cohesive
because the reference linked together. In this grammatical cohesion, there are two
types of it, anaphora and cathapora. Anaphora refers to something that has been
 mentioned earlier. Basically it refers back. While cataphora is the opposite of
anaphora. It refers forward. Example:
Claude and Diana is a great couple. He is a responsible man and she is a nice
woman. (Anaphora)
The room is clean, the stuff is neatly arranged, the bathroom also smells good. She is
so thoughtful when it comes to her home. Silmi such a tidy person, I would like to be
like her. (cataphora)
-Substitution: Substitutions are used to reduce repetition. Exampe: “I have some
cookies. What do you like? The chocolate one or the red velvet one?”. “One” replaced
“cookies” to reduce repetition. There is also ellipsis to reduce repetition but it is up to
the hearer to replace it with what they understand.
 Lexical Cohesion
-Repetition: Just like its name, repetition is repeated words or phrase. Repetition can
indicates that the word have important meaning .
-Synonym: A word or phrase that have same or nearly the same meaning with
another word.