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This paper will discuss the topic of context by comparing two articles: Mona Baker's
Contextualization in translator- and interpreter-mediated events and John Hawthorne's Context-
dependency and comparative adjectives. The three context distinctions posited by Baker
(cognitive vs. interactional, static vs. dynamic, and neutral vs. power-sensitive) will attempt to be
applied to the examples given in Hawthorne’s article. The paper will also refer to Joan Cutting’s
chapter on context and co-text from Pragmatics and Discourse.

In his article, Hawthorne discusses the importance of context for properly understanding
comparative adjectives, i.e., those adjectives which compare an individual or a group of people or
objects to others. He starts with the following example:

(1) He is an impressive chess player.

Hawthorne argues that the domain of the adjective impressive depends heavily on the
context, stating that this sentence sounds well if he is compared to both professional and non-
professional chess players. However, this sentence does not appear nearly as natural if the subject
is compared only to professional chess players (Hawthorne 2007, p. 195).

In this example, Cutting’s lexical and grammatical cohesion does not help with
understanding the context because the sentence is isolated. Thus, one would have to recur to their
background knowledge to create the context and fully understand the sentence: for example,
knowing whether he is a professional chess player (unlikely) or a casual chess player who
happens to play very well compared to other casual players (Cutting 2008, pp. 6, 8-13).

Due to the aforementioned contextual isolation, two of Baker’s three pairs of distinctions
are not readily applied. We know nothing about the speaker and the speech situation the sentence
is uttered in. Therefore, it is not possible to ascertain whether the context here is static or
dynamic, or whether it is neutral or power-sensitive. However, this sentence might be
characterized as cognitive as opposed to interactional. What helps the interlocutor or the reader
understand the sentence is not an explanation or any kind of additional information provided by
the speaker, but our assumptions about the world and our experiences with it. On the other hand,
if the hypothetical interlocutor knew who he is (for example, if the sentence were placed in a
real-world situation), they would also know if he is a professional chess player or not, thus
making the context interactional instead of cognitive.

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(2) Every student in the classroom answered every question.

When it comes to this example, we need context to understand the domain of the NP
every question. The main help here is the general background knowledge (Cutting 2008, p. 6).
Although it is stated that way in the sentence, it is obvious that the students did not answer every
question in existence, or every question that has ever been asked. What they did answer is every
question that was put to them. Thus, this is an example of Baker’s cognitive definition of context
because, as opposed to the last example, the interlocutor does not rely on any additional
information received from the interaction (Baker 2006, p. 323). Instead, they rely solely on their
view of the world and their life experiences, which help them understand that it is in fact not
possible for the students to answer every question that exists, which reduces the domain of every
question, even without it being specifically mentioned in the sentence itself.

(3) 18,120 passengers flew on the Boston to Milwaukee flight this week.

This example shows our reliance on context to distinguish a passenger from a person.
There may have been 18,120 passengers on the flight, but there was an equal or a smaller number
of different people taking the flight since it is almost certain that some of the people flew the line
multiple times, thus being counted as multiple passengers. In spite of that, Hawthorne argues that
this example is felicitous:

Now of course one might think that people are confused when they utter [(3)]: they
take unacceptable liberties, positing objects they do not really have a coherent conception of.
But so long as we can make sense of the perceived felicitousness of [(3)] without positing
covert structure, that is good enough (Hawthorne 2007, p. 203).

This is again an example of Baker’s cognitive definition of context because the

interlocutor relies on their knowledge of the world to be able to distinguish passengers from
persons. One might even regard it as an example of dynamic context (Baker 2006, pp. 325-328),
which deals with speakers having multiple roles, based on the situation they encounter
themselves in, rather than having only one static role. In this sentence, people flying from Boston
to Milwaukee take on the role of a passenger. However, they never really lose their general role
of a person. Later on, we may count not only the total number of passengers, but also the total
number of people taking that flight.

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When it comes to the examples offered in articles about theoretical linguistics, such as the
one by Hawthorne (as opposed to, e.g., sociolinguistic case studies), they mostly come in
isolation, without any information on, for example, the background of the subject or the location
that the example takes place in, which would be more common in articles of a more social nature.
This lack of extralinguistic information makes the reader rely either on the co-textual context,
i.e., the explanations offered by the author, or on the cognitive definition of context (Baker), that
is the cultural background knowledge (Cutting), where the reader understands the example by
using their life knowledge.

Since the examples in such articles mostly come in isolation, that makes it very difficult,
if not impossible, to apply two of Baker’s three pairs of context distinctions: it is often not clear
whether they show a static or a dynamic context, or whether the context is neutral or power-
sensitive. This is especially notable in examples not focused on the meaning of the sentence, but
merely on the structure itself, which is commonplace in articles about morphology and syntax. As
already mentioned, the cognitive definition of context is the most frequently used one in order to
make sense of a sentence, but the social/interactive definition of context may also come to the
reader’s aid in certain cases. After all, Baker argues that those two definitions are not mutually
exclusive (2006, p. 324) but can be used in complementary fashion.

To conclude, context is an essential tool to understand not just comparative adjectives in

Hawthorne’s article, but also to make sense of any examples offered in linguistic articles. We
may not rely on intertextuality or on social interaction as much in these situations (although they
might be useful occasionally). Our main help in understanding them is the cognitive definition of
context, that is, our cultural background knowledge and life experience.

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Works cited

Baker, M. (2006). Contextualization in translator- and interpreter-mediated events. Journal of

Pragmatics, 38(3), 321-337. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2005.04.010

Cutting, J. (2008). Pragmatics and Discourse. A Resource Book for Students. 2nd edition. London
and New York. Routledge.

Hawthorne, J. (2007). Context-dependency and comparative adjectives. Analysis, 67(3), 195–

204. https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/67.3.195