situation |
Working Definition:
a situation is "the interaction between objects in the real world." (Ungerer & Schmid, An introduction to cognitive linguistics, 54)
Disciplinary Definitions:
James Paul Gee in his An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method understands all discourse to be "situated."
5.3 Situations
"Language then always simultaneously reflects and constructs the situation or context in which it is used (hereafter I will use the term "situation," rather than "context," because I want to define it in a particular way). But what do we mean by a "situation"? Situations, when they involve communicative social interaction, always involve the following inextricably connected components or aspects... :
- A semiotic aspect, that is, the "sign systems," such as language, gestures, images, or other symbolic systems ..., and the forms of knowledge, that are operative and important here and now. Different sign systems and different ways of knowing have, in turn, different implications for what is taken as the "real" world, and what is taken as probable and possible and impossible, here and now, since it is only through sign systems that we have access to "reality."
- An activity aspect, that is, the specific social activity or activities in which the participants are engaging; activities are, in turn, made up of a sequence of actions...
- A material aspect, that is, the place, time, bodies and objects present during interaction ...
- A political aspect, that is, the distribution of "social goods" in the inter-action, such as, power, status, and anything else deemed a "social good" by the participants in terms of their cultural models and Discourses, e.g. beauty, intelligence, "street smarts," strength, possessions, race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. ..
- A sociocultural aspect, that is, the personal, social, and cultural know-ledge, feelings, values, identities, and relationships relevant in the inter-action, including, of course, sociocultural knowledge about sign systems, activities, the material world, and politics, i.e. all the other aspects above...
All these aspects together constitute a system (an interrelated network) within which each of the components or aspects simultaneously gives meaning to all the others and gets meaning from them. That is, we have another form of reflexivity here, as well. For a shorthand, let us call this system the "situation network."
Situations are never completely novel (indeed, if they were, we wouldn't understand them). Rather, they are repeated, with more or less variation, over time (that is, distinctive configurations or patterns of semiotic resources, activities, things, and political and sociocultural elements are repeated). Such repetition tends to "ritualize," "habitualize," or "freeze" situations to varying degrees, that is, to cause them to be repeated with less variation ...." (82-83)
Comments:
Note Gee's use of configurations in the preceding. Though similar to my use of the term, it does not include transpositioning.
Notes
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last revised:
June 13, 2007
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