Context-Sensitivity A Discourse-Pragmatic Orientation

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5.2.4.3 Context-Sensitivity

One of the foundational concepts of the analysis presented here is that language is not only used in context but language is also context sensitive. As Schiffrin states in the introduction to Discourse Markers: 1. Language always occurs in a context. 2. Language is always context sensitive. 3. Language is always communicative. 4. Language is designed for communication. Schiffrin 1988, 3 Context-free language use does not exist. Linguistic utterances may be extracted from their original context, or language instructors may create what they think are representative, context-free utterances, but the classroom or the pedagogical setting in which they are created are contexts which shape the utterances. The automatic search by language users for a plausible context for apparently anomalous linguistic items—or the search for coherence—is an increasingly accepted principle of linguistic analysis. As Schiffrin states: …the role of context is so pervasive that it figures even in grammatical analyses whose data consist of individual intuitions about isolated sentences. Not only is the introspection which accompanies intuition actually a special kind of cognitive context in and of itself, but as teachers of introductory syntax can no doubt attest individuals are very adept at imagining discourse contexts in which ungrammatical sentences find a natural home. Schiffrin 1988, 3 The particular context within which language is used will affect its form and shape. In the study of any language, including biblical Hebrew, all linguistic items must be discussed in their various contexts of usage. Context includes not just awareness of the content of the surrounding clauses, but it incorporates syntactic contexts as well as narrative contexts. Syntactic contexts would be, for example, clauses with , clauses 98 with , as well as other dependent and independent clauses. Narrative contexts include not only different text-types, but also the stage of development within a text. Different stages of development—such as aperture, nucleus, closure—may have certain characteristic features. Episode boundaries, commented on so frequently in the review of scholarship, are an example of a particular narrative context that are expected to have certain characteristic features.

5.2.4.4 Choice