Megawati

40300120097

Summary Background knowledge, Context, types and the roles of context..

These are the situational context in terms of what people ‘know about what they can see around
them’, the background knowledge context in terms of what people ‘know about each other and
the world’ and the co-textual context in terms of what people ‘know about what they have been
saying’ (Cutting 2008: 5). Background knowledge context includes cultural knowledge and
interpersonal knowledge. That is, it includes what people know about the world, what they know
about various areas of life, what they know about each other (Cutting 2008) and what they know
about the norms and expectations of the particular discourse community in which the
communication is taking place. Contextual knowledge also includes social, political and cultural
understandings that are relevant to the particular communication (Celce-Murcia and Olshtain
2000).
Background knowledge is an information that is not in a text, but is used from memory by a
reader to understand the text.
Background knowledge is the amount of information or knowledge someone has on a particular
topic. Background knowledge is acquired by the number of experiences someone has in life or
the amount of knowledge they have retained from reading or listening.
Example:
John was in his way to school last Friday He was really worried about the math lesson.
Different linguists seek to define context from different point of view in order to answer
questions encountered in their own fields, and to support their own ideas and theories.
H. G. Widdowson, when focusing his study on language meaning, thought “context” as “those
aspects of the circumstance of actual language use which are taken as relevant to meaning.” He
further pointed out, “in other words, context is a schematic construct... the achievement of
pragmatic meaning is a matter of matching up the linguistic elements of the code with the
schematic elements of the context.” (H.G. Widdowson, 2000, p.126)
When Guy Cook was studying the relationship between discourse and literature, he took
“context” into consideration as well. In his definition, context is just a form of knowledge the
world and “the term „context‟ can be used in a broad and narrow sense. In the narrow sense, it
refers to (knowledge of) factors outside the text under consideration. In the broad sense, it refers
to (knowledge of) these factors and to (knowledge of) other parts of the text under
consideration, sometimes referred to as „co-text‟.” (Guy Cook, 1999, p. 24)
When studying reference and inference, George Yule also took “context” into account. He
provided us with a somewhat general definition, “Context is the physical environment in which a
word is used.” (George Yule, 2000, 128)
Although they are viewed from different perspectives for different purposes, these definitions
have an important point in common: one main point of the context is the environment
(circumstances or factors by some other scholars) in which a discourse occurs.

1) Authorial context
Another term for this is biographical context. To say that authors write from their own
experiences is an exaggeration (imagination is important, too), but their lives always influence
their work in some way.
2) Socio-historical context
Literary works often respond in some way to the society in which they were written, and most
often (though not always) that response takes the form of criticism. Think about how this
particular work depicts society.
3) Philosophical context
Contemporary authors consciously or subconsciously address the same questions that have
captivated humanity’s attention ever since we became prosperous enough to have the time and
energy to think about them: “What is the nature of the universe?” and “What is the individual’s
proper response to the universe? Included in the first category (metaphysics) are secondary
questions about whether it has a purpose or meaning, if it ever didn’t exist or if it will ever stop
existing, if it had a creator and, if so, whether he or she or it is still involved or interested and
whether benign, malefic, or indifferent, and any other questions you can imagine by replacing the
word universe with something else (humanity, life, death, thought, love, God, nature, time, and
so on). Included in the second category (ethics) are all questions of morality and behavior,
pleasure and pain, fate and free will, kindness and cruelty, and anything else concerning human
actions.
4) Literary context
To whatever else literary works respond, they also respond to other literary works. Authors
respond to other authors positively, negatively, or both.
5) Critical context
Once any work is published, it begins to attract criticism — if it is noticed at all. That is, critics
begin to write about it, expressing what they admire and what they dislike about it.