ENG508 Final Term Subjective 2024 by VSC

ENG508 · Finals Compilation 2024 · LESSON 19

Q1. Define Situational Context?

The situational context is the immediate physical correspondence, the situation where the interaction is taking place at the moment of speaking e.g. people talking on the phone and making gestures with their hands or face. For example, ‗Go right John‘. (Indicating to right side). The hearer and speaker do not share the situational context, so the gestures do not add meaning to the words. Situational Context also involves ‗setting‘ as we see setting of a talk show, a drama or a movie.

Q2. Difference between cultural & interpersonal knowledge?

Cultural

Interpersonal

Cultural knowledge is general knowledge that most of the people carry with them in their minds about areas of life, e.g. religion, ethics; good vs bad, manners, etc Interpersonal knowledge is knowledge acquired through previous verbal interactions or joint activities and experiences. It includes privileged personal knowledge about the interlocutor For example, I say to my friend ‗Let‘s go to Masjid‘. In a Muslim Community, I surely mean ‗to go for prayer‘. for example, I ask my friend, ‗Do you have a watch?‘ In this example, ‗do you have a watch?‘ can be interpreted as ‗what‘s the time by your watch?‘

Q3. Briefly explain co-textual context?

The context of the text itself is known as co-text. For example, ‗She is talking to her boss.‘ We see, in this example ‗her‘ is pointing back to ‗She‘. The words used in the conversation give enough knowledge about ‗what has been mentioned before? and what is going to be‘? The co-text of a word is the set of other words used in the same phrase or sentence. Co-text limits the range of possible interpretations we might have for a word. Consider a complicated example to understand co-textual context. ‗She met (her) school teacher.

Q4. What is meant by the exploration of context?

Exploration in the text is not possible until we understand each and every factor separately. Here, we will study some of the factors. The text usually contains sociolinguistics aspect of speech acts; and affected by the social differences, i.e. gender, class, religion. For example, a person with limited social exposure can‘t understand an elite communication about cars-brands, etc. because he has never heard these names in his community. The exploration of the text focuses on three points: conversation analysis, international sociolinguistics and social context.

LESSON 20

Q1. Define reference & its types?

Reference is a broader term which covers Exophora, Endophora, Anaphora, Cataphora and Grammatical Cohesion. The speaker uses linguistic forms, known as referring expressions, to enable the hearer to identify the entity being referred to, which is known as the referent. Words themselves do not refer to anything, people refer. For example: ‗Mr. Aftershave is late today. Exophora refers to the context which does not exist inside the text. When there is no previous mention of the reference in the preceding text, we call it exophoric reference. Exophora is dependent on the context outside the text, e.g. proper nouns, etc.

Endophora:

The expressions which are used to refer an item within the same text is known as Endophoric reference. For example, ‗I met John, he has just come from England. There are two types of Endophora: Anaphora and Cataphora. Anaphora: If the expressions i.e. them, this, us link back to something that went before in the preceding text, it is known as anaphoric reference. Cataphoric expressions link forward to a referent in the text that follows. This type is opposite to anaphora.

Q2. Define deixis ? write its types?

Deixis is referring expression which points to the referent in the context (whether interlocutors can see it or not), it is known as deixis. There are three types of deixis: Person, Place, Time.

Q3. Grammatical cohesion & its types?

Grammatical cohesion is what keeps the text together. Example ‗I had called the both John and Liza but she remained absent‘ shows the importance of grammatical cohesion. If the speaker skips pronoun ‗she‘, the hearer would not be able to infer ‗who is being talked about? i.e. ‗I had called the both but__ was absent‘ seems ambiguous. Substitution helps the writer or speaker to hold the text together and avoid repetition. So, also, as well, too, etc. are sometimes used as substitute words. Ellipsis: The other form of grammatical cohesion is Ellipsis. It is omitting a word that is not necessary for the text. Just like substitution, ellipsis avoids repetition and depends on the hearer or reader‘s ability to retrieve the missing words from the surrounding co-text.

Q4. Which lexical devices help to maintain cohesion in text?

Lexical devices help to maintain cohesion in the text; i.e. Repetition, Synonyms, Subordinates, and General words. repetition; repeated words or word-phrases, threading through the text. Substitution and Ellipsis avoid repetition; lexical repetition exploits it for stylistic effect. . Synonym is; instead of repeating the same exact words, a speaker or writer can use another word that means the same or almost the same. The general word is a higher level superordinate: it is the umbrella term that can cover almost everything. These can be general nouns, i.e. person, place, thing; general verb, i.e. do and happen, etc. For example, ‗do it.‘ may be inferred as ‗killing, cooking or purchasing.

LESSON 21

Q1. Define cooperative principle by Grice?

Grice (1975) posited a general set of rules, contributors to the ordinary conversation; called Cooperative Principle (CP). He (1989) stated, ‗Make your conversational contribution such as, is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged‘. Grice never intended his use of the word ‗cooperation‘ to indicate an ideal view of communication.