Alessandro DURANTI ; Charles GOODWIN, Rethinking context : language as an interactive phenomeno

Clemente, Ignasi

Clemente Conte, Ignacio

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Reviews Links & Letters 3, 1996 149 rnay seern like a rather weak conclusion, in that one would think that discourse analysts would naturally feel the need to familiarize thernselves with the work being done in these fields, especially the research that touches directly or indirectly on their own interests. However, she rnay feel that the current acadernic system does not foster this interdisciplinarianisrn enough and that she has to explicitly te11 researchers in discourse to be wary of overspecialization and of the tendency not to see the forest for the trees. Over all, however, this book is very good. As a pedagogical tool, it will prove itself invaluable to students in discourse analysis. It also has things to say to sea- soned veterans in the field. It ~rovides the reader with a solid, well-inforrned pers- pective on the process and praxis of dis- course analvsis and constitutes another irnportant step on the road to developing a unified, and uni&ing, theory of dis- course. Jarnes L. McCullough Departarnent de Filologia Anglesa i de Germanística. Universitat Autbnoma de Barcelona & Facultat d'Hurnanitats Universitat Pornpeu Fabra, Barcelona Alessandro DURANTI and Charles GOODWIN. Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. viii +363 pages. The editors of Rethinking context: Lan- guage as an interactive phenomenon, Alessandro Duranti and Charles Goodwin, successfully bring together research tradi- tions on context that include perspectives frorn ethnornethodology, hurnan interact- ion, the ethnography of speaking, and conversation analysis. In doing so, they achieve the two objectives stated in their excellent introduction, narnely to serve as a point of encounter for these different perspectives, and to illustrate how the study of context can be approached frorn the fields of Sociology, Anthropology and Linguistics. The authors in this volurne contribute to the study of context with articles both on theory and practice. In order to p ide  the first time reader, a broad classification of the contributions can be rnade according to: (a) theoretical studies; (b) indexicality; (c) context creating stra- tegies, and (d) case studies. (a) Theoretical studies. The main theo- retical contributions are by Gurnperz, Schegloff, Kendon, and the prelirni- nary introduction by A. Duranti and C. Goodwin. Gumperz applies his contextualization cues to cross-cul- tural conversation, pointing out that rnisunderstanding occurs when par- ticipants do not realize that cultures have different strategies for the sarne conversational goal. Schegloff des- cribes how the rneaning of an utter- ance is achieved by tying it to the previous speaker's turn. In this fash- ion talk becornes context for further talk, an aspect also analyzed by Schegloff in storytelling and by Baurnan in narratives. Kendon rnakes use of Goffman's attentional tracks' 1. Attentional tracks refer to the different ways in which participants organize their attention. Goffman distinguishes a main story-line track, a directional-line track, which serves to organize the main stoiy-line track (¡.e., a change of alignment), and disatrend tracks which are events that are officially treated as irrelevant to the activity in progress. A more detailed analysis is given in Goffman's Frame Analysis (Goffman 1974). 150 Linh & Letters 3, 1996 Reviews to analyze how participants give hints to each other in order to change their alignrnent2 before actually changing it. In a similar way, Gaik's study of radio talk-show therapy is centered on how speakers manage to switch activities and rnodes of discourse within the sarne event. (b) Indexicality. The articles on indexi- cality by Hanks, Duranti, and Ochs share an interest in the way deictics serve not only as a link to the social, cultural and physical world, but are also of irnportance in creat- ing context. In addition, deictics show power relations, by reflecting the participant's accessibility to the inforrnation in interaction. (c) Context creating strategies. Lind- strorn. the Goodwins, and Kendon. look at the role of gesture, gaze and physical distance in creating context. They also analyze how participants negotiate truth and falsity in their interactions, and their ability to back their own statements. (d) Case studies. Basso's analvsis of \ ,  Kalapalo narratives shows how dis- course strategies can be used to evoke cornplex and culture-specific forrns of knowledge. Bauman highlights the way speakers recreate tradition to give authenticitv to their narratives. Philips, in describing courtroorn repair strategies, focuses on routin- ized talk. Cicourel is concerned with the hidden procedures of power with- in institutional settings, in his case study, rnedical encounters. But what is context? A fairly simple notion of context would be to regard it as al1 the phenornena within which a text (both oral and written) is ernbedded, and without which talk cannot be either inter- preted or understood. Context has beco- me a kev issue for al1 students interested in situated social practice. Linguists have becorne aware that language has to be located in time and space, since language cannot be understood without taiung into account the dynarnic creation of rneaning in verbal interaction. Sociologists and anthropologists concerned with explain- ing social behavior through everyday interaction have also realized the irnpor- tance of detailed analyses of language. The ~roblern arises when we have to delirnit context, since what is relevant for the researcher rnay not be relevant for the participants' interpretation of talk. We can rnake use of a simple rnetaphor where we have three boxes, one inside the other. The largest one is the society-box (i.e., where socio-cultural organization and knowledge is found). The rniddle one is the context-box, and inside it, we have a srnaller one. which is the talk-box. If we go frorn the context-box inwards, we have " to decide what should be placed outside the talk-box, but still inside the context- box, that is to sav, what is the rnain or foca1 event for participants, and what is surrounding it. Going ounvards, from the context-box to the larger society-box, we also have to decide what phenomena, frorn al1 the kinds of knowledge partici- pants have, are going to be relevant for them in that event within a specific time and place. And indeed, alrnost everything rnay becorne context, as long as it is need- ed for understanding a particular situated talk. This triple relationship (society-con- text-talk) becornes more cornplex when we realize that they share a continuous The rnost irnportant contribution of this volurne to the research on language and culture is not so rnuch the dynarnic, interactive definition of context, but the 2. A change in alignrnent can be understood as a new positioning on the part of a speaker or other partic- ipants in the interaction with respect to the discourse that is being produced. Reviews Links & Letters 3, 1996 151 multiple factors that should be taken into account when analyzing the bi-direction- al context-text relationship. Before giving some examples of this interactive charac- teristic, the excellent introduction by A. Duranti and C. Goodwin gives us four parameters of context established by Ochs (Ochs 1979: 2-6): (a) setting (the social and spatial frarnework within which encounters are situated); (b) behavioral environrnent (the way that participants use their bodies and behavior as a resource for framing and organizing their talk -ges- ture, gaze, distance between speakers-); (c) language as context (for other talk -tales, jokes, reported speech-), and (d) extrasituational context (background knowledge that extends far beyond the local talk and its irnmediate setting). We can find many examples of this interactive relationship. If we look again into the context-box, we see that neither talk nor context are static, neutral con- cepts. We can say this also for participants interacting inside the talk-box. They rnani- pulate -unconsciously or consciously- their own talk and context, establishing what is true or false, what is relevant and what is not. Participants let each other know just the information they need to go on with their talk, achieving underst- anding through negotiation, through a constant process of giving and processing inforrnation. This inforrnation is not neu- tral either, and we need hints or cues in order to understand the realintention, cues that help us to infer real rneaning. These are the contextualization cues established by Gurnperz, a set of cues that help to understand what is being communicated. Now if we look outside the context- box, at the relationship between the extra- situational context and the context of tallc, we find that social organization, culture (cultural knowledge and tradition) are also interactive concepts. Participants in situat- ed talk are constrained by society and culture, but these exist as long as they are invoked and recreated in everyday inter- action. Therefore, we should bear in mind that participants have free access through the three boxes, modifying them to sup- port their own interactional purposes. A. Duranti and C. Goodwin's intro- duction is the kev to understand a book which is vety rich \n both theory and prac- tice. For the uninitiated reader in Pragrnatics it may be rather dense, since a comprehensive reading of the articles requires a wide background knowledge on the different perspectives that have studied situated talk. This introduction, to which the first time reader nqds to refer constantly while reading the different arti- cles, introduces the various methodolog- ical approaches which the articles assurne. The editors have also included short intro- ductory comments to each article, high- lighting the main research interests of each author as well as their rnethodoloaical traditions. It is a book which requiresvboth time and patience, and it is essential for under~tandin~ situated talk. Ignasi Clemente Departarnent de Filologia Catalana Universitat de Barcelona References AUER, P. (1992). «Introduction: John Gurnperz' approach to contextualizat- ion». In A .er, P. and di Luzio, A. (eds.) The Contextualization of Language, D. 1-37. Amsterdam/Philadel~hia: J. Benjarnins Publishing Cornpany. GOFFMAN, E. (1974). Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. New York: Harper and Row. GUMPERZ, J. (1992). «Contextualization revisitedn. In Auer, P. and di Luzio, A. (eds.) The Contextualization of Language, p. 39-53. Amsterdarn/Philadelphia: J. Benjarnins Publishing Company. OCHS, E. (1979). ((Introduction: What child language can contribute to prag- rnaticsn. In Ochs, E. and Schieffelin, B.B. (eds.). Developmental Pragrnatics, p. 1-17. New York: Acadernic Press. 

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