The concept of context

The expectancies on which texts depend to make sense may come “not just from

within the textual environment but from extra-textual context. That is to say, texts display

continuity not just with elements within their boundaries (textual context), but with the

contexts within they take place” (Eggins, 2004: 85). Texts are social processes and need to

be analysed as manifestations of the culture they, in large measure, construct. This means,

in Martin & Rose’s (2003: 493) words, that “alongside a theory of language, functional

linguistics has to take some responsibility for a theory of the contexts in which language

plays a part”. It can be stated that systemic linguistics has a close connection with

sociolinguistics, as Eggins (2004: 21/89) says, and “it explores ways in which social and

cultural context impact on language use. In fact, the interest in specifying context was also

pursued by researchers working within sociolinguistics and ethnography of speaking”.

Context, thus, involves different dimensions associated with society.

At this stage, it is worth making a brief comment about the most social aspect of

context. Verschueren (1999), although not a systemic-fuctional linguist, has a contribution

to the notion of context that is pertinent in this thesis. As Verschueren indicates (1999: 87), “minds are minds in society”. The contextual correlates may be found in the mental, socio­ cultural and physical worlds. Therefore, the utterer’s and interpreter’s perspective on a

mental, social and physical reality should be considered. These correlates also include

properties of the linguistic channel that is used (in this case, the songs) and the linguistic

context in which the event takes place. “The activation of those aspects makes them part of

and beliefs, wishes and intentions, social settings, religion, gestures, bodily postures, and

so on” (Verschueren, 1999: 103). Hence, in the literary genres already mentioned (novel,

short story and lyrics) the writer/singer informs the reader/hearer about a particular

fictional world. But, as revised before, they also need to achieve a rapport with their

readers/hearers— an identity of viewpoint whereby the contents of the fiction are

interpreted. According to Verschueren (1999: 112), context is the product of a generation

process involving both what is ‘out there’ and its mobilisation (and sometimes manipulation) by the language users. It is, precisely, the language users the main ingredient

of the communicative context (together with the mental, social and physical worlds).

Verschueren (1999) called the language users utterer (or speaker) and interpreter (or

hearer), with multiple functional roles and voices (especially the utterer). In the

communicative event of music, utterer and interpreter are engaged (sometimes

consciously, sometimes not) in a discourse that may contain different levels of uttering and

interpreting, what Ducrot (1984) called the “polyphony in language use”. As indicated in

the songs analysed for this study (see Section 6.2.8.), quite often, the artists (utterer) are

not the authors of their songs. They speak for others, for example, a lyricist (utterer) who

wants to convey a message with a particular intention. In the song Delilah, Tom Jones is

not the character in the song who kills his lover and in Loba, Shakira is not the ‘she wolf’ or ‘men eater’ depicted in the song. Simultaneously, the lyricist is also constrained, on many occasions, by the standards and marketing strategies of the music industry (utterer

too), as previously mentioned. These are the utterer voices which, at the same time, should

take into account the many roles of the interpreter of their message. Apart from the direct

hearer (the specific social group) that a particular kind of music/message is aimed at, and

the virtual interpreter (see page 97), Verschueren (1999) distinguishes different categories

and involvement in the communicative event. According to the author, these side

participants are bystanders, overhearers and eavesdroppers, all of them actual presences

that, even though they are not direct interpreters, they become (either by accident or just

out of curiosity) participants of the musical communicative event (1999: 83). In short, it

can be argued that nobody can escape context. Even if the song playing and listened to by

chance is unpleasant, it has an unconscious effect on people. Thus, all utterers are

voluntary but not all interpreters are.

For Eggins (2004), another important characteristic of context is that it may

function as the retrieval source to clear up indeterminacies of meaning that all texts

involve. For example, in You use it, you wash it! we cannot interpret the meaning at all,

except by reference to context.

Such highly context-dependent texts are risky since the less you spell out, the more chance there is that readers will misinterpret the message. These types of texts only work when there is a high level of shared understanding between the users, which implies a high level of shared socio-cultural identity. As readers of texts, we learn how to tell when indeterminacies need to be resolved by reference to extra-textual context or when indeterminacies are an integral feature of the genre and must be read within that genre (Eggins, 2004: 86).

A short story (like a song) is not a novel and there is no time for in-depth

characterisation or setting. In songs, there is often very little information about settings

(Murphey, 1992; Cutler, 2000). On this account, Machin (2010: 92) remarks that in a story

we often require characters and place. But song lyrics are often stories that only have

participants and feelings and so it is with this study. Settings are not relevant to the

analysis and the findings expected here. Eggins concludes that both everyday and literary

order to enjoy literary genres. Generally, to negotiate more pragmatic, everyday texts, we

try to reduce indeterminacies by anchoring a text in its immediate context of situation. As

noted before, Verschueren (1999) puts forward that contexts are created by the dynamics

of interaction between utterers and interpreters in relation to what is ‘out there’. Thus, context is “dynamic and its relationship with language is bilateral. To put it in another way,

the text is understood thanks to context but the context can be also guessed from the text”

(Verschueren, 1999: 109). Eggins (2004) argues that just as all texts depend upon context

for their interpretation, so also all texts carry their context within them. “When we read

texts, we are always encountering the traces of context in text, whether we are conscious or

not” (2004: 87). Eggins (2004) also points out that in hearing or reading any text (and its

linguistic patterns) the context of language can be deduced. Our ability to deduce the

source of a text, merely from the text itself, indicates that, in some sense, “context is in text

and text carries aspects of the context in which it was produced” (Eggins, 2004: 87). Our

ability to “deduce context from text and the ambiguity of language removed from its

context provide evidence that, in asking functional questions about language, we must

focus not just on language but on language use in context” (Eggins, 2004: 9). This

highlights an issue of particular interest to systemic linguistics that has already been

tackled here: the relationship between language and context. Systemic linguistics is

interested in exploring how context gets into text. Systemic approaches to context derive

from the work of Malinowski (1923), who contended that “texts have to be understood in

relation to their context of situation and context of culture” (Martin, 1992: 497).

Observations such as these reviewed above are explored and clarified within systemic

linguistics through genre and register theories, as will be explained below.

According to Martin (1992), the socio-semantic organisation of context has to be

of the ways in which meanings configure as text. As pointed out at the beginning of this

chapter, in the current thesis context is studied in accordance with two main factors: the

linguistic and the socio-cultural. Martin argues that from the perspective of language,

“context can be interpreted as reflecting metafunctional diversity and, from the perspective of culture, context can be alternatively interpreted as a system of social processes” (1992:

494). Martin (1992: 495) resolves the tension between these two perspectives by including

in the interpretation of context two communication planes: genre (context of culture) and

register (context of situation); register functioning as the expression form of genre, at the

same time as language functions as the expression form of register. Register can itself be

organised with respect to field, tenor and mode (explained below), reflecting

metafunctional diversity in its expression form. This three plane model can be outlined as

in Figure 2.

Genre

Register

Language

Figure 2. Stratifying context as language’s content plane (Adapted from Martin, 1992: 495)