Contexts of social action_guest editors’introduction

Editorial Contexts of social action: guest editors’ introduction Context is one of those linguistic terms which is constantly used in all kinds of context but never explained. (Asher, 1994, p. 731) 1. Introduction In traditional linguistic accounts of context, one thinks of the immediate features of a speech situation, that is, a situation in which an expression is uttered. Thus, features such as time, location, speaker, hearer and preceding discourse are all parts of context. But context is a wider and more transcendental notion than what these accounts imply. For one thing, context is a relational concept relating social actions and their surroundings, relating social actions, relating individual actors and their surroundings, and relating the set of individual actors and their social actions to their surroundings. Social actors select and construct the appropriate contexts for their social actions. Against this background, social context is regarded as given.1 Context is also a constitutive part of the research paradigm of speech act theory. Just consider felicity conditions as social and linguistic context categories (Austin, 1975; Searle, 1969), and language games where language is conceived as a form of action and as a form of life (Wittgenstein, 1958). The impact of social context on language, language use and linguistic performance is also of importance in the field of sociolinguistics. For example, code-switching is anchored to the differentiation between the value-free conceptions of bi- and multilingualism and their value-loaded high- and low-variety counterparts of diglossia, and to different styles and registers (Fasold, 1990; Holmes, 1992; Wardhaugh, 1993). Social context is not only conceived of as presupposed and given, but also as interactionally organized, which is reflected in the research para- digms of conversation analysis (Heritage,1984; Schegloff, 1991), ethnomethodology (Garfinkel, 1994) and ethnography of speaking (Saville-Troike, 1989). Here, context is generally differentiated with regard to a spatio-oriented frame of reference and a socio-oriented frame of reference, namely the immediate physical surroundings, Language & Communication 22 (2002) 391–402 www.elsevier.com/locate/langcom 0271-5309/02/$ - see front matter # 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PI I : S0271-5309(02 )00016 -2 1 This is reflected in the presuppositional approach to context which employs terms like common ground, background information or background assumptions (Penco, 1999; Stalnaker, 1999; van Dijk, 1977). which are assigned the status of common ground to which the co-participants anchor their social actions (Akman, 2000). Social action is therefore dependent on context and interacts with context. In addition to the social or external context, utterances in the field of conversation analysis and communicative acts in the field of sociopragmatics represent another type of context: linguistic context. Here, the lan- guage produced (formulated) and interpreted (decoded) by the co-participants is assigned a dual function. On the one hand, it invokes linguistic context by con- structing it itself; on the other hand, its sole production and interpretation provide the context for subsequent talk and recovery of intended meaning (Akman and Alpaslan, 1999). Accordingly, the act of speaking and interpreting builds contexts and at the same time constrains the building of contexts. To employ Heritage’s (1984, p. 242) terminology, the production of talk is doubly contextual. An utterance relies upon the existing context for its production and interpretation, and it is, in its own right, an event that shapes a new context for the action that will follow. Contrary to a conception of language as an autonomous system (as, for instance, is the case for formal linguistics), ethnographic, ethnomethodological and con- versation-analytic frameworks assign language the status of a sociocultural and context-dependent means of communication. In these dynamic frames of reference, social contexts are jointly constructed and negotiated. Analogously to the ethno- methodological conception of social context, more recent approaches to context are also based on a dynamic conception of context and explicitly account for the accommodation of communicative meaning which is constructed and negotiated in communication (Clark, 1996; Duranti and Goodwin, 1991; Thomason, 1992). Thus, a dynamic approach to communication in context is based on the premises that social action and language use (i) are embedded in a context of situation, (ii) con- stitute practical action and (iii) are a socially situated cultural form. So, where do linguistic and social contexts meet, and where do they depart? 2. Linguistic context Language use is necessarily anchored to a speech situation, co-participants and language, and is therefore embedded in the immediate physical surroundings which are available in local linguistic context(s) and in more remote linguistic context(s), and in immediate extra-linguistic context(s) and in more remote extra-linguistic context(s). Depending on the theoretical frameworks, the linguistic context of social action comprises a communicative contribution’s adjacent communicative con- tributions, a speech act’s adjacent speech acts, an utterance’s adjacent utterances or a turn’s adjacent turns. Yet, is it only the prior contribution that constitutes lin- guistic context or is it the prior and the upcoming contributions which constitute the linguistic context of a current contribution? And in what way are these linguistic strings related? In discourse analysis, it is generally assumed that a current contribution requires a prior contribution in order to account for anaphora resolution and for the retrieval of other contextual information. In a dynamic outlook on communication, however, 392 Editorial / Language & Communication 22 (2002) 391–402 a current contribution is not only anchored to a prior contribution, but also constrains the form and function of upcoming talk. For instance, an information question gen- erally requires a dovetailed answer which provides the requested information. An information question only allows a question as an upcoming contribution if it functions as a request for a specific type of information referred to in the prior question. Against this background, the delimitation of linguistic context to a contribution’s directly or immediately adjacent contributions seems too narrow. Rather, linguistic context is conceived as delimited by the contextual constraints and requirements of a commu- nicative genre (Luckmann, 1995), which entails the notions of macro speech act (van Dijk, 1977), text type (De Beaugrande and Dressler, 1981) and communicative pro- ject (Linell, 1998). These macro categories are hierarchically structured and sequen- tially organized, and they subcategorize into pre-, core-, side- and closing sequences. In a dynamic outlook on communication, linguistic context can be decontextualized at a local level and recontextualized at a global level. As regards the former, lin- guistic context is decontextualized in a negotiation of meaning sequence in order to repair some misunderstanding. As regards the latter, the reproduction of local meaning, as is the case with the phenomenon of reported speech, for example, is recontextualized at a global level by adding further contextual information. Thus, there is intradiscursive recontextualization anchored to local decontextualization and interdiscursive recontextualization anchored to global recontextualization. Similar to a communicative contribution and a speech act, the macro categories of a communicative genre, a macro speech act and a text type are defined by inten- tionality of action and responsibility for possible consequences. Luckmann (1995, p. 177) defines the macro category of a communicative genre as follows: Communicative genres operate on a level between the socially constructed and transmitted codes of ‘‘natural’’ languages and the reciprocal adjustment of perspectives, which is a presupposition for human communicative interaction. They are a universal formative element of human communication. [. . .] Human communicative acts are predefined and thereby to a certain extent pre- determined by an existing social code of communication. This holds for both the ‘‘inner’’ core of that code, the phonological, morphological, semantic and syntactic structure of the language, as well as for its ‘‘external’’ stratification in styles, registers, sociolects and dialects. In addition, communicative acts are predefined and predetermined by explicit and implicit rules and regulations of the use of language, e.g. by forms of communicative etiquette. A necessary condition for the differentiation of context into linguistic context and social context is a conception of language as a vehicle for communication and con- versational interaction. Against this background, linguistic context is intrinsically linked to social context which is also clearly shown in the definitions of the macro category of a communicative genre which is based on the social-context concept of convention. The micro–macro link made explicit in the definition of a commu- nicative genre is also reflected in the distinction between local social and global social contexts. But what is a social context; or more precisely, what are its constituents? Editorial / Language & Communication 22 (2002) 391–402 393 3. Social context The research paradigm of ethnomethodology represents a micro sociological per- spective par excellence. It is based on the premise that indexicality of social action is key and it focuses on the domain of intersubjectivity. It examines the questions of how separate individuals are able to know or act within a common world and of how members negotiate or achieve a common context.2 This common context is synonymous with social context, which, like linguistic context, classifies into a local (or micro) social context and a global (or macro) social context (Schegloff, 1987). Social contexts are further distinguished with regard to a number of intermediate layers, such as meso social context regarding the delimiting frame of a particular speech event or the more global institutional context (Boden and Zimmerman, 1993; Drew and Heritage, 1992; Sarangi and Slembrouck, 1996). Social context is often considered to comprise the context of a speech event and is defined by the deduction of linguistic context and cognitive context from a holistic conception of context as comprising all of the constitutive parts of a speech event. Constituents of social context are, for instance, co-participants,3 micro context (that is, the immediate concrete, physical surroundings including time and location), and the macro contextual institutional and non-institutional domains. Frequently, lan- guage use in social contexts has been allocated to the domains of linguistic perfor- mance or parole which have been assigned the status of an individual and momentary product. This has been denied by Recanati (1998, p. 133): ‘But to this we can now reply that there exist, ‘‘deposited in each brain’’, rules for the game of speech, common to all and existing independently of the will of the individual.’ This is also manifest in the prototypical micro contextual phenomenon of deixis and deictic expressions (i.e. temporal deixis, local deixis, participant deixis, discourse deixis and social deixis). Contrary to anaphora resolution, which requires linguistic contexts, discourse deixis is informed both by linguistic and social contexts. As regards the status of the co-participants, the categories of speaker, hearer and audience denote interactional categories. The speaker is the one who produces (encodes) communicative contributions. The hearer is the one who interprets (decodes) communicative contributions. The audience, on the other hand, interprets/ decodes the communicative contributions. In an actual speech situation, however, interactional categories do more than simply produce and interpret communicative contributions. In a social context, they subcategorize into social roles and their gendered and ethnic identities. In institutional communication the co-participants’ institutional roles embody institutional power which manifests itself in their corres- ponding rights and obligations. True, the concepts of a speaker, a hearer and an audience are, from a language–production and language–interpretation viewpoint, fairly straightforward. However, if these interactional roles are instantiated in social 2 See Davidson (2001) for a rewarding examination of the nature and status of knowledge of our own minds, knowledge of the contents of other minds, and knowledge of the shared environment. 3 Co-participants further subdivide (Goffman, 1974; Levinson, 1988) into the domains of speaker, hearer and audience, and their respective subcategories such as author, principal, strategist, emitter, addressee, target, etc. and further discern with regard to their status (ratified and unratified). 394 Editorial / Language & Communication 22 (2002) 391–402 contexts, they become more complex. For this reason, speakers, hearers and audi- ence are represented by multiple social roles. As for their status in discourse, one would like to represent multiple discourse identities. So far, the examination of the constitutive parts of a speech situation has focussed on its unmarked form, namely face-to-face interaction. The complexity of interact- ing and interdependent roles increases in mediated discourse, such as mediation talk or media communication, where different frames and different levels of talk interact. In media communication, we have a first-frame interaction and the corresponding first-frame roles, and then we have a second-frame interaction, for which the first- frame interaction serves as input (Fetzer, 2000). Analogously to the relational con- ception of context, we do not have separate, but, rather, interacting frames. This also holds for telephone conversations, where there is still a direct interaction and a direct negotiation of meaning. By contrast, in a written speech situation one has delayed-response and, thus, no direct negotiation of meaning. To conclude, the social context of a speech situation is multifaceted and hence extremely complex, and it is, in practice, refined by a sociocultural context. But what exactly are socio- cultural contexts?4 4. Sociocultural context Social context is frequently used synonymously with extra-linguistic context which comprises the co-participants, their physical and psychological dispositions and the specific knowledge or assumptions about the persons involved, the knowledge of the language, routines and activity-types (Levinson, 1992), their communicative intentions and communicative goals, and general background knowledge. Of course, the immediate extra-linguistic context is embedded in more remote extra-linguistic contexts, such as particular organizational contexts and other socio-historically constituted contexts of institutions and (sub)cultures. The synonymous use of extra-linguistic context and social context is, however, an oversimplification as research in socio- linguistics, anthropology and cultural studies has informed us. Rather, social con- text subcategorizes into different types of sociocultural context which are defined by a particular perspective on social context in general. Thus, social context and all of its constituents can be conceived as an unmarked type of context or as a default context, and sociocultural context can be conceived as a marked type of context in which particular variables, such as time or location, are interpreted in a particular mode. For instance, the distinction betweenmonochronic time and polychronic time is based on 4 Before we delve into this question, we would like to make a passing remark re validity basis of speech—a crucial component of social context. Habermas (1998) believes that communication pre- supposes a norm which demands intelligibility, truth, warrant and sincerity, encapsulated by the ratifica- tion of validity claims (Fetzer, 1999). Defined by this norm is an ideal pragmatic situation in which communication cannot be distorted by social factors. Habermas’s work is valuable because it emphasizes factors like the knowledge of speaker’s personal history or familiarity with the culturally specific contexts of a discourse. In a nutshell, Habermas sees language as a specific medium for coming to an under- standing on the sociocultural plane. Editorial / Language & Communication 22 (2002) 391–402 395 the differentiation between a linear, tangible and divisible conception of time, where events are scheduled one at a time and where this schedule takes precedence over interpersonal relationships. Polychronic time, by contrast, is characterized by things occurring simultaneously. Here, interpersonal relationships take precedence over a task-oriented outlook on communication (Hall and Hall, 1989). In other words, culture provides us with a filter mechanism which allows us to interpret social context in accordance with particular sociocultural-context constraints and requirements. The aforementioned view is also reflected in Hymes’s (1974) notion of a speaking grid anchored to the components of situation (the physical setting and the psycho- logical scene), participants (speaker, hearer and audience, and their status in the participation framework), ends (the goal and the purpose of the speech event from a sociocultural viewpoint), act sequence (how something is said as regards message form and what is said as regards message content), key (mock or serious), instru- mentalities (channels—spoken, written, e-mail—and forms—vernacular, dialect, standard—of speech), norms (of interaction and interpretation) and genres. Hymes’s speaking grid and his notion of communicative competence has been refined by Gumperz’s (1977, 1992) conception of conversational inference, which is related to his notion of contextualization cue. The latter is explained by Saville-Troike (1989, p. 131) as follows: Gumperz builds on this [the extent to which speakers must share experience to successfully develop conversational exchanges of any length and depth–AF & VA] in proposing the outline of a theory of how social knowledge is stored in the mind, retrieved from memory, and integrated with grammatical knowledge in the act of conversing. Conversational inference is ‘the ‘‘situated’’ or context- bound process of interpretation, by means of which participants in a conversa- tion assess others’ intentions, and on which they base their responses’ (Gum- perz, 1977, p. 191). Because of its cultural base, the ‘meaning’ that emerges in a conversation is likely to be different for participants if they are not members of the same speech community. It is of relevance that these investigations do not refer to social context but rather to sociocultural context. This is due to the fact that language is seen as a socially situated cultural form and, therefore, as a specification of the more generally con- ceived social and linguistic contexts. Yet linguistic context is not only conceived of from a local or micro perspective. Global or macro linguistic context manifests itself in the above-explicated category of a communicative genre. The research domain of language-as-social-semiotic, such as the ethnography of speaking, recognizes the necessity of analyzing the linguistic code itself. However, there are also numerous investigations which focus on the cognitive processes of speakers and hearers that are required for the performance of communicative acts in a sociocultural setting (Gumperz, 1992; Saville-Troike, 1989). Cognitive context denotes a set of premises and cognitive environment denotes a set of facts, namely, true or possibly true mental represe