est Visayas State University

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

Master of Arts in English, Foreign Language, and Literary Studies
La Paz, Iloilo City

Module 1
Task 1

Instruction: Based on your experience and/or observation, make a theoretical situation how an utterance
may be interpreted based on the following contexts: situational, background knowledge, and
co-textual. Discuss how the text and context interact, allowing the hearer to make a
meaningful interpretation of the utterance.

For example, your sister may utter, “This project is killing me. I need a hero!” This utterance
may be understood by the hearer based on several contexts.

Context:
a new student in Context:
school or a an applicant in a job
transferee interview
Utterance:
“Which school are
you from?”
Context: Context:
a graduate school a teacher-coach
student who happens participating in a
to be a teacher contest

Discussion:
Speaking from my experiences, I have been asked the abovementioned utterance in all the contexts
I have enumerated in the figure above, although not always in verbatim or in English. Each time, I had
given a different response.
The most recent among these encounters is the job interview I had gone through for the job I have
now. It was the final interview and the interviewer decided to skip the courtesies and went directly to
business and quizzed me about my credentials and qualifications. One of the questions he went to ask
me was about the school I was affiliated with, as of that moment, while eyeing me head to toe. Funnily
enough, what I was wearing was not suited for a job interview, having worn only a shirt, a pair of six-
pocket trousers, a pair of rubber sandals, and unkempt hair.
The question had me thinking since it can be answered with multiple correct answers. Although,
the tone he used to ask me might as well be a conveyance of his disappointment to have met an
applicant who did not come dressed for the occasion. I was silent for a minute as I racked my brains
for what affiliation meant or rather, what he meant by it. Since affiliation means relation, there were
possibly a dozen of responses I could have given, beginning with the elementary school I graduated
from the university I was enrolled in at that moment, or the school I worked in for a time and just
resigned from.
 In the end, I ended up giving him what he deemed an incorrect response since what he was asking
all along was for the school I used to work for and not the graduate school I was attending.
When these utterances, however, are taken out of the context of the conversation and put in
another, the response could have been the most appropriate and fit. The miscommunication, perhaps,
was rooted in the use and the misunderstanding of the word, ‘affiliation’ which tapped into my several
different backgrounds. Hypothetically, if the question asked had been, “Which school are you from?”, I
would have been more perplexed than I had been in this one since it could have meant a dozen of
other things.
Thus, in the discussion below, I have tackled in detail how in each context I have managed to
respond differently to varied situations wherein the selected utterance had been used.

Hypothetical Contexts for the Conversations

In the figure above, I have identified possible contexts where the utterance can be utilized and can
elicit many responses. The following identified contexts are discussed in detail below.

Context 1: a new student in school or a transferee

As I have already mentioned, I have experienced being asked the same question in all the contexts
I have listed. In this particular context, I had just moved to a new school during my third year in high
school, having lost my scholarship from the previous school I was enrolled in.
Now, this particular utterance had been asked because normally, newly-enrolled students and
transferees would wear civilian clothes and not uniform, during the first few days of school and maybe,
because I was a new face that some did not recognize.
Now, because of my being a new face in the school and my not wearing the prescribed uniform,
my identity of being a transferee had been established resulting in my being asked the question.
Normally, I had given the appropriate response by responding with the name of the school I was
formerly enrolled in. And by having responded appropriately to the question, I had firmly established
my identity as a transferee.
However, if I had not understood the nature of where the discourse was taking place, I would have
answered differently such as giving the name of the school I graduated in elementary or in kindergarten
since those would as well answer the question, but would not have sufficed the required response from
the question.

Context 2: a graduate school student who happens to be a teacher

During my first years when I decided to enroll in graduate school and even until now, some of
the courtesies that we had to perform included having to introduce ourselves to the professors and the
rest of the class. Usually, if one is enrolled in the graduate programs of the graduate school of the
College of Arts and Sciences, other would easily make the assumption of one being a teacher.
Thus, when one fails to introduce the line of work that he/she does, a classmate easily assumes
that he/she teaches and attends graduate school either to update his/her knowledge in his particular
field of specialization or to earn academic units for a promotion.
In my case, during introductions, I do not usually give out the name of the school that I work
in for mystery but a professor or a classmate usually notices and feels obliged to ask, obliging me to
reveal the school I teach in.
The context of where the conversation takes place usually defines the nature of the answer
expected of the person introducing himself. In this particular context, the response is determined by
the culture of the context or the norms and typicality occurring in the environment. In the context of
the graduate school of the College of Arts of Sciences, students are, more often than not, teachers –
which is typical and the norm in the context. So, when a student enrolled in MAEL class is asked which
school is he from, the reply will usually be the name of the school one teaches. In this case, the usual
response is largely influenced by the situational and cultural contexts.
However, others who happen to be working in a different line of work, a small percentage of
the population, will have varied responses to the question identified, such as the name of the school
they graduated from. In this case, the participants will have constructed a different context wherein
they defined the context of the situation according to their truths, a subjective context explicated by
Van Dijk (2009).

Context 3: a teacher-coach participating in a contest

One of the many responsibilities of being a teacher is having to attend competitions where your
students will be contending. More often than not, this question will have to be asked upon arrival
because one has to sign up for registration. If it does not get asked during the registration, it will be
during the competition, when a seatmate of yours will have to strike a conversation with you while your
contestant is performing.
Among the four contexts I have enumerated in this discussion, it is in this one where the
confusion is almost always not present. The social identities of the participants are apparent thus,
arriving at an answer that can satiate the requirements of the question. Perhaps, because the context
is firmly established and the participants are aware of the identities they portray in this situation, as
well as the elements of the context present that shape their discourse during the exchange.

Context 4: an applicant in a job interview

I have told the entire narrative in the introduction as to what transpired in during my interview,
where I have miserably failed to give the appropriate response for the utterance. However, in a
retrospect, when I try to replay how differently things would have played out if some elements of the
conversation had been different.
For instance, if I had been informed of the interview several days or hours prior instead of the
very short notice of twenty minutes, I would have dressed very differently than I had. In the academe,
corporate attires are expected of applicants during job interviews to establish a sense of formality.
Gee's (1996) discourse includes various aspects of behaving such as posturing, dressing, etc., which
were not all observed.
If I had done so, I would have projected a different socially situated identity. By having worn a
very casual attire, I had brought with me an aura of insincerity in my wanting the position I applied for.
The way the interviewer stared at how I have dressed so inappropriately before the interview had even
begun primarily expressed the frustration in his face. If instead, I had worn corporate attire, I would
have conveyed an aura of sincerity and seriousness in my application. No matter how greatly or lousily
I had performed during the actual interview, my appearance was taken into consideration and may
have tremendously affected how I fared.
As for the question, I might have conjured a different and hopefully correct response if there
had been no apprehension in me at that moment. The fact that I was underdressed and unprepared
for the occasion might have created a hostile atmosphere that was intangible and unknown to other
participants. Also, the nature of the exchange before that particular question might have led me to give
a different answer than he had expected because I did not seem to follow the context that he was
leading me in.
In another world or in an alternate timeline, I would have answered the question correctly if
the circumstances and contexts surrounding the discourse had been different.
Conclusion
In conclusion, different responses may be harvested from the same speaker despite the question
being the same. These responses differ depending on the diversity of contexts in which this utterance
is utilized. Context does not only refer to the physical environment where the exchange takes place but
as well as the intangible elements that can, in a way or two, influence the discourse of the participants.
These elements may include the cultural and conventional natures of the conversation or where
it is taking place, and the situation that has prompted the conversation to occur. Also, the backgrounds
of the speakers engaged in the conversation and the paralinguistic features exhibited by the speakers
have to be taken into account.
Unlike conversation analysis which only accounts for the linguistic features found in exchange,
discourse analysis takes into consideration several factors influencing the conversation.

Al Jeffrey L Gonzales
Master of Arts in English and Literature