xx Moreover, Malinowski states that there are two notions of context, context
of situation and context of culture. Context of situation is the situation in which the text is uttered. It is an environment of the text. Context of culture is the
cultural background or the history behind the participants. In order to understand the meaning of any utterance, one should know and understand the cultural
background of the language. It can include the participants, or people who are involved in speech, time, social environment, political condition etc Halliday and
Hasan, 1985:6. From the statement above, it can be concluded that speech context of
linguistics research is a context in all physical aspect or social background related with the speech, time, place, social environment, political condition, etc. Thus,
context is a set of propositions describing the beliefs, knowledge, and commitments and so forth of the participants in a discourse to in order to
understand the meaning of an utterance.
C. Presupposition
According to Yule 1996:25, presupposition is something the speaker assumes to be the case prior to making an utterance. What the speaker assumes is
true or is known by the hearer can be described as a presupposition. When the speaker uses the referring expressions like this, he, or Shakespeare, in normal
circumstances, it means that the speaker is working with an assumption that the hearer knows which referent is intended.
The presuppositions can be shown in the examples below: 1.
“Your brother is waiting outside for you”.
xxi 2.
“Why did you arrive late?” 3.
“When did you stop smoking cigars?” The example 1 shows that there is an obvious presupposition that you have a
brother. The example 2 shows that you did arrived late. In addition, if you are asked the question like in example 3, it shows that there are at least two
presuppositions involved. In asking this question, the speaker presupposes that you used to smoke cigars, and that you no longer do so.
From the definition above, it can be said that presupposition is assumptions underlying a statement, which remains in force even though the
statement itself is denied. It is regarded as a concept to determine the truth of sentence or utterance.
D. Implicature
The concept of implicature is developed by Grice in Gazdar, 1978:38. It is a theory about how people use language. He states that
implicature is a proposition referring to the meaning suggested or implied from an utterance rather than meaning of what is said. He also states that
implicature is a proposition based on the interpretation of the language use and its context of communication.
The participant can interpret what the implication of an utterance in a different way from what the speaker actually says Grice, 1975:156. For
example, a teacher utterance of “This class is so quiet” may implicate that the teacher not only states that he feels the class is quiet, but more than he wants
the students to be more active during the class.
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E. Speech Act
