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6 - Role of Context

from Part II - Key Issues in Intercultural Pragmatics Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 September 2022

By
Anita Fetzer
Edited by
Istvan Kecskes
Istvan Kecskes
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Albany
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Summary

The concept of context has undergone some fundamental rethinking in the scientific community. Rather than being considered an external constraint on linguistic performance, context is analyzed as a product of language use and thus as an interactional achievement, which is negotiated and co-constructed, imported and invoked. Context and contexts are analyzed from the perspectives of interlocutors, considering contextualization, recontextualization and decontextualization, and entextualization. The complexity, multilayeredness and dynamics of context have far-reaching implications on its role in intercultural pragmatics with interlocutors from different linguistic backgrounds having diverging meaning-making processes, diverging contextualization conventions, and thus diverging constructions of context. Intercultural pragmatics thus calls for context-sensitive particularizations of the fundamental premises of cooperation, contextualization, meaning-making process, and negotiation of discourse common ground.

Keywords

discoursecontextualizationcommunicative analysisconversation analysiscognitive domainsnegotiated meaningrecontextualization
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Intercultural Pragmatics , pp. 139 - 163
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • Role of Context
  • Edited by Istvan Kecskes, State University of New York, Albany
  • Book: The Cambridge Handbook of Intercultural Pragmatics
  • Online publication: 29 September 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108884303.007
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  • Role of Context
  • Edited by Istvan Kecskes, State University of New York, Albany
  • Book: The Cambridge Handbook of Intercultural Pragmatics
  • Online publication: 29 September 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108884303.007
Available formats
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  • Role of Context
  • Edited by Istvan Kecskes, State University of New York, Albany
  • Book: The Cambridge Handbook of Intercultural Pragmatics
  • Online publication: 29 September 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108884303.007
Available formats
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