Palmer F.R. Semantics.

A New Outline Context of Situation

The term context of situation is associated with two scholars, first an
anthropologist who has already been mentioned, B. Malinowski, and later a
linguist, J.R. Firth. Both were concerned with stating meaning in terms of the
context in which language is used, but in rather different ways. Malinowski's
interest in language derived from his work in the Trobriand Islands in the South
Pacific. He was particularly concerned with his failure to produce any satisfactory
translations for the texts he had recorded. For instance, he recorded a boast by a
canoeist which he translated, "We-run front-wood ourselves ... we-turn we-see
companion-ours he-runs rear-wood." This, Malinowski argued, made sense only if
the utterance was seen in the context in which it was used where it would
become clear that, for instance, "wood" referred to the paddle of the canoe.
Living languages must not be treated like dead ones, torn from their context of
situation, but seen as used by people for hunting, cultivating, looking for fish, etc.
Language as used in books is not at all the norm; it represents a farfetched
derivative function of language, for language was not originally a "mirror of
reflected thought". Language is, he maintained, a "mode of action", not a
"countersign of thought". Malinowski's arguments were primarily based on his
observation of the way in which the language of the people he was studying fitted
into their everyday activities, and was thus an inseparable part of them. But he
noted also that there is, even in our own more sophisticated society, a special
significance of expressions such as How do you do? Ah, here you are, which are
used to establish a common sentiment. [...] This aspect of language he called
"phatic communion", where the words do not convey meaning but have a purely
social function.
He noted, too, that the child, right from the stage of babbling, uses words as
"active forces" with which to manipulate the world around him. For the primitive
man, similarly, words are "important utensils". Indeed for him, Malinowski
argued, there is much in common between words and magic, for both give him
power. Malinowski's remarks about language as a mode of action are useful in
reminding us that language is not simply a matter of stating information. But
there are two reasons why we cannot wholly accept his arguments. First, he
believed that the "mode of action" aspect of language was most clearly seen in
the "basic" needs of man as illustrated in the languages of the child or of primitive
man. He assumed that the language he was considering was more primitive than
our own and thus more closely associated with the practical needs of the
primitive society. To a very large degree, therefore, he assumed that the
difficulties of translation were due to the differences in the nature of the
languages and that the need to invoke context of situation was more important
when dealing with primitive languages. But he was mistaken. For although there
may be "primitive" people, who lack the knowledge and skill of civilised people,
there is no sense in which a language can be regarded as primitive. Of course
many languages may not have the vocabulary of modern industrial society, but
this is a reflection of the interests of the society, not of the primitive nature of the
language. In purely linguistic terms it appears to be a fact that no one language
can be judged more primitive than another - though Malinowski is by no means
the only scholar to make this false assumption. The difficulties of translation that
Malinowski noted result only from the DIFFERENCES between the languages, not
the fact that one is more primitive. Secondly, Malinowski's views do not provide
the basis of any workable semantic theory. He does not even discuss the ways in
which context can be handled in a systematic way, to provide a statement of
meaning. Moreover, it is quite clear that even with his Trobriand Islanders much
of their linguistic activity is not easily related to context. For instance, he discusses
narrative, the telling of stories; but here, surely, the context is the same at all
times - the story teller and his audience, whatever the story. If context is to be
taken as an indication of meaning, all stories will have the same meaning.
Malinowski's solution was to invoke "secondary context", the context within the
narrative; but that has no immediately observable status and can no more be
objectively defined than concepts or thoughts that he was so eager to banish
from discussion. J.R. Firth, the first Professor of General Linguistics in Great
Britain, acknowledged his debt to Malinowski, but felt that Malinowski's context
of situation was not satisfactory for the more accurate and precise linguistic
approach to the problem. For Malinowski's context of situation was "a bit of the
social process which can be considered apart" or "an ordered series of events in
rebus" (i.e. an ACTUAL observable set of events). Firth preferred to see context of
situation as part of the linguist's apparatus in the same way as are the
grammatical categories that he uses. It was best used as "a suitable schematic
construct" to apply to language events and he, therefore, suggested the following
categories: A. The relevant features of the participants: persons, personali ties (i)
The verbal action of the participants. (ii) The non-verbal action of the participants.
B. The relevant objects. C. The effects of the verbal action. In this way contexts of
situation can be grouped and classified - and this is, of course, essential if it is to
be part of the linguistic analysis of a language. As an example of his use of context
of situation Firth considered a "typical" Cockney event with the sentence: "Ahng
gunna gi' wun fer Ber'." "I'm going to get one for Bert." "What," he asks, "is the
minimum number of participants? Three? Four? Where might it happen? In a
pub? Where is Bert? Outside? Or playing darts? What are the relevant objects?
What is the effect of the sentence?" 'Obvious!' you say." It is important to stress
that Firth saw context of situation as one part of the linguist's apparatus or rather
as one of the techniques of description, grammar being another such technique
on a different level, but of the same abstract nature. For linguistics was for him a
sort of hierarchy of such techniques all of which made statements of meaning.
Here he used the analogy of the spectrum in which light is dispersed into its
various wavelengths; linguistics similarly would "disperse" meaning in a
"spectrum of specialized statements". Thus, for Firth all kinds of linguistic
description, the phonology, the grammar, etc., as Well as the context of situation,
were statements of meaning. Describing meaning in terms of context of situation
is, then, just one of the ways in which a linguist handles a language, and not in
principle very different from the other ways in which he carries out his task.
Firth's views have often been criticised or even rejected outright, but the
criticisms have usually failed to understand precisely what Firth was trying to say.
It will be worth while, therefore, to consider some of them since this may make
Firth's standpoint clearer. ' First, it has often been said that he was guilty of
equivocation in his use of the word "meaning". For while context of situation may
well deal with meaning in the usual sense, i.e. the "semantic" sense, quite clearly
the other levels, grammar, etc., are not concerned with meaning in the same
sense. In claiming, therefore, that all the levels are statements of meaning and
that context of situation was thus just one of a set of similar levels, Firth was,
consciously or unconsciously, using "meaning" in two different senses, one
legitimate, the other his own idiosyncratic usage. This criticism is not entirely fair
for three reasons. First, it is valid only if we accept that there is an area of
linguistic investigation which deals with the relation of language and the world
outside that is quite distinct from the investigation of the internal characteristics
of language. But, as we have already seen, many linguists have confined
semantics to sense relations; for them at least, the study of meaning does not
differ greatly in kind from grammar, since both would seem to be intralinguistic. I
do not accept this point of view - I merely point out that Firth is by no means
alone in seeing the study of meaning in the narrow semantic sense as not
different in principle from the study of grammar. Secondly, we have already seen
in the discussion of sense and reference (2.3), that it is almost certainly
impossible, in principle, to decide what is "in the world" and what is "in
language". If this is so, Firth is surely to be praised rather than criticised for
refusing to draw a clear distinction within his levels of description between the
one that deals with language and the world and those that are wholly within
language. Thirdly, Firth did not produce any total, "monolithic", linguistic model
which could, in theory at least, totally describe a language. He did not, in fact,
believe that such a model was possible even in principle (though nearly all
linguists have assumed that such a model is not merely possible, but essential).
The linguist for Firth merely makes partial statements of meaning, saying what he
can about language where he can, cutting into it at different places like cutting a
cake. There is no need on such a view to distinguish between statements that are
about meaning and those that are not. A second criticism of Firth's view is that it
has very limited value since it will not get us very far. Context of situation may be
all right for the Cockney example or for the drill sergeant's Stand at ease, but not
for the vast majority of the sentences that we encounter. But this does not prove
that Firth was wrong. If we cannot get very far with context of situation this is
perhaps no more than a reflection of the difficulty of saying anything about
semantics, and it is surely better to say a little than to say nothing at all. It must be
remembered too that Firth believed we could never capture the whole of
meaning. The proper conclusion, perhaps, should be that we need far more
sophisticated techniques for context of situation than have yet been developed. It
is easy enough to be scornful, as some scholars have been, of contextual theories
and to dismiss them as totally unworkable. But it is difficult to see how we can
dismiss them without denying the obvious fact that the meaning of words and
sentences relate to the world of our experience. One virtue of Firth's approach
was that he set out to make only PARTIAL statements of meaning. It may be that
this is all we can ever hope to achieve. (pp. 46-54)
Questions:
1. What proves that it is important to distinguish between language as a "mode
of action" and language as "a countersign of thought"?
2. What is the source of many translation problems, according to F.R. Palmer?
3. Comment upon the definitions of "context of situation", given by B.
Malinowski and J.R. Firth.
4. What is "meaning" in its intralinguistic and extralinguistic senses?