Rethinking Context

It is a long time before the concept of context was firstly put forward. All problems in linguistics are connected with context more or less. As a result of the significance of context, scholars at home and abroad have made a large number of studies on context. The achievements were fruitful and instructive. Studies on context included its definition, characteristics, classification, functions and etc. Context studies also shifted from static to dynamic ones. The roles played by language users were also paid close attention to.However, there exist many difficulties and problems of contextual study because of the complexity of contextual interior structure, the diversity of contextual exterior functions and the concrete nature of contextual movement pattern. For example, how context is constructed? What is the interrelationship of contextual factors? What is the role played by contextual factors in restricting a specific language unit? Although it is accepted that context is dynamic, almost all studies on context still stay in static analyses and descriptions, there lacks a corresponding dynamic approach to context.The author would like to make a tentative research on context by establishing a new contextual framework to solve the existing problems."Utterer’s point of view" can be defined as the active and dominant role played by utterers in the manipulation of context. Utterer’s manipulation of context can be divided into three aspects: utterer’s adaptation to context, utterer’s utilization of context, and utterer’s construction of context. Utterer’s adaptation to context is a common practice in communication. It refer to that utterers adjust themselves to existing context, including the right time, occasion, external physical factors, the communicators’identity, status, cultural background, and so on. Utterer’s utilization of context means in the process of communication utterers take advantage of those potential positive factors to realize their own communicative goals, including entity, moods, interrelationship and identity, topics and so on. Utterer’s construction of context means that in order to create some kind of "shared knowledge" utterers can build certain context by employing some language strategies, including supposing, associating, exemplifying, initiating a topic, offering novel expressions and interpreting.What’s more, the author reclassifies contextual factors. From physical to mental realms contextual factors can be classified into five aspects, that is, language users, situational context, socio-cultural context, cognitive context and by-communication context. Language users (including utterer and interpreter) are presented as focal points. The core position of language users demonstrates dynamic context in that context can differ with different choices of language users.Through utterer-oriented manipulation of context and a language-user-centered reclassification of context, it proves that dynamic context is the mainstream and has a great explanatory force in communicative activities.