In
a communicative exchange both interactants rely their prior knowledge which may
or may not be shared.Shared knowledge is perhaps most important for everyday
communicative exchanges. When such exchanges take place between participants
who are familiar with each other, they rely on their shared knowledge. Thus, in
the following exchange between husband and wife the discourse is meaningful to
both because they share knowledge on which the exchange is based :
Wife
: The reception is in the garden. (implies that it will be cool)
Husband
: I’m wearing the brown jacket, (implies that he has taken the proper
precautions)
An outsider may not necessarily get the implied meanings from simply listening
to the exchange. When a communicative exchange occurs among strangers, the
physical environment often supplies the contextual factors that may be
necessary, such as in the following exchange at an airport :
Traveler
: I am looking for my bags: Ijust got off this flight
Attendant:
Baggage Claim is one flight down. You can take the elevator.
For
discourse where context is not readily available (written text or formal
speeches), those interpreting the discourse have to rely more heavily on the
text itself and on their prior knowledge. Relevant prior knowledge can create
the appropriate context within which it is possible to understand and properly
interpret the discourse.
In
the language classroom, context-reduced discourse is not always presented to
students along with the background they need to be able to interpret it. Thus,
let us imagine that in an English-as-a-foreign-language classroom, somewhere in
a non-English-speaking country, the teacher introduces the “Gettysburg Address”
as a reading passage. If the students are not familiar with the history of the
United States and with the background of the Civil War, and the conditions
under which Preident Lincoln delivered this speech, they will have a difficult
time understanding the text. A great deal for background knowledge is needed in
order to create the global context within which the text can be understood.
Some sections of this book will address the need to create a meaningful context
within the language classroom so that (a) difficult texts can be properly
interprets and (b) students can learn and become enriched by the context and
information that they encounter, thus enabling real communication to take
place.
