Values Of Context In Verbal Communication

Context is a common concern not only in linguistics, sociolinguistics, but also in pragmatics. Out of various interests, researchers have initiated studies from different perspectives. Nevertheless, what values does a context possess? This is certainly a fundamental issue in the understanding of context. Unfortunately, there is little mention of this in the rich literature of context analyses, and up till now, there exists no such studies. As an explicit examination into the values of context, this project is believed to add to our knowledge about context.By synthesizing traditional views and pragmatic views on context, we find out that context in verbal communication involves factors abstracted from concrete communicative settings (both immediate physical and social) having influence on communicators in the interacting process. In addition, these factors are actually a pool of common background knowledge mutually manifest to the participants, and have impacts on the linguistic forms chosen for uttering, the meaning of utterance and the appropriateness of utterance.By absorbing the latest discoveries in context discussions, we take a dynamic attitude towards context, and hold: (i) that context is not given, immutable, or pre-existing before the interaction takes place, but to a great extent, created by communicators as contextualization cues in their utterances. What is more, it keeps changing and expanding in the process as the interactants' mutual knowledge expands, (ii) that context is not static. Some aspects of context can be intentionally manipulated and made use of by communicators as a communicative strategy.Since successful communication is always characterized by the successful expression of intention on the part of the utterer, and the successful comprehension of the intention on the part of the hearer. In other words, successful conveyance and comprehension of communicative meanings of utterances are key access to successful communication. Hence we conclude that context plays a cardinal and decisive role, and exhibits colossal values in verbal communication, which are demonstrated in four ways:(i) Imposing constraints on communicators in the process of interaction so as to provide a common ground for uttering and understanding. Owing to the constraints, the utterer is limited to make contextually appropriate utterances to express his or her intention. The hearer restricts the range of meanings with context and comes up with the understanding of the utterer's real intention.(ii) Supplying enough proofs for the understanding of utterance meanings so as to speed up the hearer's recognition of the utmost intention of the utterer.(iii) Manipulating contextual elements to achieve communicative goals. Communicators can make use of the immediate physical environments or activate from the pool of shared knowledge relevant schemata to establish or re-establish a context beneficial for attaining communicative goals.(iv) Adding beauty of speech both to form and content. Careful consideration and planning of phonemes in their co-text, harmonious allocation of words and phrases, and balanced arrangement of sentences in discourse make utterance well weighted and phonetically musical. Besides, context canbe exploited to enhance the expressiveness of utterance.The significance of this study is both theoretical and practical. Theoretically speaking, it helps to widen or enrich the discussion of context; and pragmatically speaking, it enhances our sense of context and facilitates effective ways of verbal communication.The limitation of this study lies in that this is but a preliminary analysis of context in terms of values. And during our study, we come to realize that the value of context might even contribute to the growth of our pragmatic competence. However, this is out of the scope of this paper, and could be only a topic for future investigations.