CONTEXTUALIZING LINGUISTIC INPUT

Beyond methods: Macrostrategies for Language Teaching

B. KUMARAVADIVELU

Context

o Extremely meaningul provides information without which language communication makes little sense.

o Though it is an important concept, its meaning is not clear.

o Halliday and Hassan:

“the joining of realities that make up a context”

Four realities * Linguistic * Extralinguistic * Situational * Extrasituational

Linguistic Context Immediate linguistic environment: grammatical and lexical level within a sentence o between sentences.

Sentence level: the environment helps to identify the meaning of words.

Eg. They own a house on the banks

of the Medina River.

Eg. My salary is paid directly into my bank.

Intersentential level: relations of semantic meaning between sentences in a text (Cohesion). Eg: A: what´s the weatherlike? A: what´s the weather like?

B: It’s quite warm. B: The dog is outside.

cohesive Not cohesive

Extralinguistic contextSuprasegmental features such as stress, intonation, pitch and

key by means of which participants asses other’s intentions.

Eg: Indian and Pakistani women serving in a

cafeteria at a British Airport using falling

intonation to make a polite offer, where a rising

intonation was needed.

A: / /Chicken?

A: / / Chicken?

Situational context

The illocutionary force of the text: WHO, TO WHOM, WHERE,

WHEN, HOW.

Hymes: SPEAKING S etting P articipants E nds A ct sequence COHERENCE K ey I nstrumentalities N orms G enre

Extrasituational context Social, cultural, political and ideological contexts shape

meaning. wider frames of interpretation that vary from culture to

culture.

Eg: “Hello, Margie. How are you? Oh, I see you´ve put on

weight”

A remark with good intentions uttered by a Zambian

to an American friend in a cross-cultural encounter. It is considered unappropiate since it sounds rude where

American cultural values and expectations operate. Results in miscommunication and a clash of conventional

patterns.

Microstrategies for contextualizing

Role play Timeline Cloze Procedures News stories

In closing…Successful language communication is a matter of realities

coming together that make up linguistic, extralinguistic, situational and extrasituational contexts. All of them

contribute to the process of meaning-making.

Then…

Teaching language necessarily demands contextualization of linguistic input.