THE CONTEXT OF SITUATION, GRAMMATICAL COHESION, AND

TEXTUALITY

1. The Context of Situation

Context of situation or situational context refers to the environment, time

and place, etc. in which the discourse occurs, and also the relationship between
the participants. There are then some aspects of contextual description which are
required in the analysis of discourse including features of context, co-text, the
expanding context, and the principles of local interpretation and analogy.

a. Features of context

Features of context refer to the factors that make the conversational event
occur in the context of situation. Firth (in Brown & Yule, 1983: 37) proposed an
approach to the principled description of social contexts, in which he stated “My
view was, and still is, that ‘context of situation’ is best used as a suitable
schematic construct to apply to language events… A context of situation for
linguistic work brings into relation the following categories:

A. The relevant features of participants: persons, personalities.

(i) The verbal action of the participants.

(ii) The non-verbal action of the participants.

B. The relevant objects.

C. The effect of speech act.”

Additionally, Hymes also proposed an approach emphasizing on the

importance of an ethnographic view of communicative events within
communities. Hymes (1974) noted that the factors affect the conversational event
including Setting (time and place the conversation occurred), Participant (the
speaker and listener), End (the purpose of conversation), Act (when individual
uses their chance to speak, Key (the voice tone and variety of language used),
Instrument (the tool to deliver utterance), Norm (the rule in which individual
should obey), and Genre (the types of conversational event). These factors are
then also known as ‘SPEAKING’.

b. Co-text

Co-text can be simply defined as the clue given within a text to the listener
or reader in order they can interpret the meaning of the text. Lewis (in Zhu and
Hand, 2010) introduced the co-ordinate to take account of sentences that include
specific reference to what has been mentioned before as in phrases like the
aforementioned. However, it is the case that any sentence other than the first in a
fragment of text will have the whole of its interpretation forcibly constrained by
the preceding text, not just those phrases which obviously and specifically refer to
the preceding text, like the aforementioned. The words that occur in text are
constrained by what we call their co-text. The interpretation of utterances within a
text is also constrained by co-text. Thus, co-text refers to the relations between
different parts of the text.

It is often possible to reconstruct at least some part of the physical context

and to arrive at some interpretation of the text even in the absence of information
about place and time of original utterance or in the absence of information about
the speaker/writer and his intended recipient. Therefore, the more co-text there is,
the more secure the interpretation is.

c. The expanding context

The expanding context occurs due to the fact that everyone could have
different interpretations to a single utterance. In Zhu and Han (2010), it is
explained that the expanding context enables us to “have abstracted away from
particular contexts, across communicative contexts in general, to arrive at a set of
features, some of which seem relevant to the identification of a speech event as
being of a particular kind, to the ability of the hearer to predict what sort of thing
the speaker is likely to say in a given type of context, and to the constraining of
interpretation in context.” Furthermore, in their book, Brown and Yule (1983: 50-
51) noted that expanding context relates to how the listeners are able to predict
what the speaker will say in a particular type of context, and to limit interpretation
in the context, so as to arrive at a set of features of the context.

Thus, the content of the features proposed by Hymes (1974) in the

previous explanation may help to limit the interpretation of each individual. For
example, the sentence “Please meet me in my office the day after tomorrow.” will
make the listener not to expand his interpretation since there is the phrase ‘the day
after tomorrow’ that give precise limitation so that the listener will not interpret it
as ‘today’ nor ‘yesterday’.

d. The principles of local interpretation and analogy

The principle of local interpretation is the principle that instructs the

hearer not to construct a context any larger than he needs to arrive at an
interpretation. In their book, Brown and Yule (1983) observed that hearing
becomes one problem in discourse, in which individual can have an interpretation
when they hear people talking yet sometimes individual can expand the context in
order to interpret the meaning. Therefore, in this case, the principles of local
interpretation and analogy are needed to instruct the listeners not to build a larger
context than they need to arrive at that interpretation.

Zhu and Han (2010) stated that he principle of local interpretation leans
heavily on the hearer’s or reader’s ability to utilize his knowledge of the world
and his past experience of similar events in interpreting the language which he
encounters. It is the experience of similar events that enables him to judge what
the purpose of an utterance might be. It is his knowledge of the world that
constrains his local interpretation.

Additionally, Zhu and Han (2010) explained that the principle of analogy
provides a reasonably secure framework for interpretation for the hearers and for
the analyst most of the time. Most of the time, things will indeed conform to our
expectations. However, conventions can be flouted and expectations upset, either
deliberately for a stylistic effect, or by accident or oversight. When the speaker or
writer is deliberately flouting a convention or upsetting an expectation for a
stylistic effect, he can only bring off that effect because the convention or
expectation exists.

Thus, the principle of analogy is one of the fundamental heuristics which

hearers and analysts adopt in determining interpretations in context. They assume
that everything will remain as it was before unless they are given specific notice
that some aspect has changed.

2. Grammatical Cohesion and Textuality

Neubert and Shreve (as cited in Nordquist, 2019) define textuality as "the
complex set of features that texts must have to be considered texts. Textuality is a
property that a complex linguistic object assumes when it reflects certain social
and communicative constraints." The most important principle and criterion of
textuality is cohesion, which is the connection or the connectedness manifested
when the interpretation of one textual element (a word located in one sentence) is
dependent on another element in the text (a word usually but not necessarily in
another sentence). There are then some types of cohesion, some of which include
reference, ellipsis and substitution, conjunction, and also theme and rheme.

a. Reference

Reference is the relationship of one linguistic expression to another, in

which one provides the information necessary to interpret the other. In written
text, referencing indicates how the writer introduces participants and keeps track
of them throughout the text (Eggins in Hameed, 2008). There are then two kinds
of reference including cohesion reference and cohesive reference.

The cohesion reference functions to retrieve presupposed information in

text and must be identifiable for it to be considered as cohesive. This kind of
reference is then divided into two types namely Exophoric referencing (refers to
information from the immediate context of situation) and Endophoric referencing
(refers to information that can be “retrieved” from within the text). It is this
endophoric referencing which is the focus of cohesion theory, in which it is
divided into two types: Anaphoric (refers to previously mentioned information in
text) and Cataphoric (refers to information that will be presented later in the text).
For cohesion purposes, anaphoric referencing is the most relevant as it “provides a
link with a preceding portion of the text” (Halliday & Hasan in Hameed, 2008).

Additionally, the cohesive reference is divided into three different types:

personal (keeps track of function through the speech situation using noun
pronouns like “she, her” and possessive determiners like “mine, yours”),
demonstrative (keeps track of information through location using proximity
references like “this, there”) and comparative (keeps track of identity and
similarity through indirect references using adjectives like “similar, different” and
adverbs like “so, otherwise”. (ibid in Hameed, 2008).

Thus, it can be seen that reference plays a big role as a part of cohesion
since it can help readers to see how participants within a text are being introduced
and keeping tracked throughout the text by the writer.

b. Ellipsis and Substitution

According to Bloor and Bloor (in Hameed, 2008) substitution and ellipsis
is used when “a speaker or writer wishes to avoid the repetition of a lexical item
and is able to draw on one of the grammatical resources of the language to replace
the item.” Ellipsis means as the omission of word, phrase, or even a clause within
a sentence, in which the meaning of the sentence then can be understood by
looking at the contextual clues, while substitution is the word, phrase, or clause
within a sentence being replaced by another word, phrase, or clause. Both ellipsis
and substitution are then divided into three types of classification as follows:

 Nominal
- The nominal ellipsis operates in nominal group, which in this case the
word being omitted is the noun, e.g. “Ayana eats chocolate ice cream,
but I prefer the vanilla.” (Ice cream is a noun being omitted)
 - The nominal substitution also operates in nominal group, in which the
most typical substitution words are “one and ones” that substitute
nouns, e.g. “This is my car and that one is yours.” (Car is a noun being
substituted)
 Verbal
- Like its name, the verbal ellipsis operates in verbal group, in which
the word being omitted is a verb, e.g. “Have you slept?”, “Yes, I have”
(Slept is a verb being omitted)
- The verbal substitution operates in verbal group as well, in which the
most common substitute is the verb “do”, e.g. “Hasan buys a new bag
and you do too.” (Buy is a verb being substituted)
 Clausal
- In clausal ellipsis, an entire clause is omitted, e.g. “Has the Semantic
class been dismissed?”, “Yes, it has.” (The semantic has been
dismissed is the clause being omitted)
- In clausal substitution, an entire clause is substituted and though it may
seem to be similar to either nominal or verbal substitution, the
difference is the presupposed anaphoric reference, e.g. “The doctor is
so friendly”, “I think so.” (The doctor is so friendly as the clause being
substituted)
c. Conjunction

Conjunction involves the use of formal markers to relate sentences,

clauses and paragraphs to each other. Conjunction then functions as signal for the
reader to relate what is about to be said to what has been said before by the writer.
Bloor and Bloor (in Hameed, 2008) described that conjunction acts as “cohesive
tie between clauses or sections of text in such a way as to demonstrate a
meaningful pattern between them”. As a semantic cohesive tie within text,
conjunction is then divided into four categories namely Additive conjunction
(structurally coordinate or link by adding to the presupposed item which signaled
through “and, additionally, etc.” and also negate the presupposed item and
signaled by “either, neither, etc.), Adversative conjunctions (indicate “contrary to
expectation” which signaled by “yet, in fact, etc.”), Causal conjunction (express
“result, reason and purpose” which signaled by “so, as a result, etc.”), and
Temporal conjunction (link by signaling sequence or times such as “then, at the
same time, etc.”).

It then can be seen that conjunction is the least directly identifiable relation
amongst the cohesion forming devices within text and this is in accordance with
the indication of Halliday and Hasan (in Hameed, 2008) that “conjunctive
relations are not tied to any particular sequence in the expression “ .

d. Theme and Rheme

Every sentence that consists of either one or more clauses has a theme and
a rheme. In their book, Brown and Yule (1983) noted that ‘theme’ is the starting
point of an utterance, while ‘rheme’ is everything else that follows the starting
point or the ‘theme’. Alternatively, Halliday (in Azzahra, 2010) stated that the
theme can be seen as the point of departure of the message.

Concentrating on the themes (or topics) of clauses does not tell us much
unless we also concentrate on the rest of the clause, which in this case known as
the rheme or comment of the clause. Thus, we see further patterns emerging when
we look at themes and rhemes together in connected text, as seen in this example:
“Andy, my little brother, really loves ice cream.” From the example, we can see
that ‘Andy, my little brother’ is the theme and ‘really loves ice cream’ is the
rheme, and we can only easily understand them when we look at them together,
not separately.
 References

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https://www.scribd.com/doc/40293842/Grammatical-Cohesion-and-
Textuality

Brown. G. & Yule, G. (1983). Discourse Analysis (1 ed.). Cambridge University

Press.

Hameed, H. T. (2008). Cohesion in Texts: A Discourse Analysis of a News

Article in a Magazine. Al-Faith Journal, No. 37, 81-114.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328216143

Hymes, D. (1974). Foundations of Sociolinguistics: An Ethnographic Approach.

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Nordquist, R. (2019). What is textuality?. Retrieved from

https://www.thoughtco.com/textuality-definition-1692538

Reference. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://glossary.sil.org/term/reference

Sandhu, F. (2015). The role of context. Retrieved from

https://www.slideshare.net/faizaliaqat01/lecture-6chap-2

The role of context in discourse analysis (n.d). Retrieved from

http://www.academypublication.com/issues/past/jltr/vol01/06/19.pdf

Zhu, J. & Han, L. (2010). The application of context theory in English teaching of
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