On The Dynamics Of Context: A Perspective Of Cross-cultural Pragmatics

This paper tends to probe into the dynamic synergy of context from the perspective of cross-cultural pragmatics.Context is the quintessential concept which enjoys great significance in pragmatic study and has been studied from different angles by a host of scholars. According to the traditional study on context, context was thought to be static and preexisted, thereupon it cannot illuminate the dynamic process of communication. But, as pragmatics gradually shook off the title of"wastebasket"of linguistics and gained more attention and achievements, the research orientation on context began to shift from a static perspective to a dynamic perspective.On the research into dynamic context, not only Mey's view of dynamic context, but also Relevance theory and Adaptation theory have contributed a lot. Mey holds that context is a dynamic, not a static concept, it is to be understood as the continually changing surroundings, in the widest sense, that enable the participants in the communication process to interact, and in which the linguistic expressions of their interaction become intelligible. Relevance theory which was put forward by Sperber &Wilson studies context and human communication from a cognitive and dynamic perspective, and brings forward the idea of dynamic context and the"ostensive-referential model", the co-authors think that context is a subset of contextual assumptions which exist in people's minds, and also is the result of constantly choosing in communication. Few years later, the appearance of Verschueren's Understanding Pragmatics presents us with a brand-new mature Adaptation theory which to some extent covers the shortage of the old literature on context. Verschueren points out that context is not static, it is dynamically generated by the constantly activated contextual ingredients and some objective things in the process of verbal communication and will change as the communication process develops. Besides, Verschueren also indicates that"adaptation"is the key point to organisms'survival in the world, and considers that human beings always tend to make negotiable linguistic choices from a variable range of possibilities in such a way as to approach points of satisfaction for communicative needs.In the past, many scholars have achieved a lot on the research into context, and have laid a sound base for the research on the dynamics of context, while they never take a...