Department: Linguistics African and European Languages
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Studying Language in Context: Exploring Systemic Functional Linguistics Advances in Theorizing and Applicability
The relevance of language as a means of interaction especially in multilingual societies is not open to discussion. As a tool of interpersonal relations, global peace and social cohesion, language is deployed in specific contexts by different range of users in order to establish different shades of meaning and by extension shape the society in a way that will make it become habitable for various races across the globe. Unfortunately, many studies particularly in the humanities and social sciences, have over the years deployed the notion of context in relation to language in a somewhat narrow and misguided sense. This paper therefore, seeks, to re-position context in System Functional Linguistics (SFL) in a broader perspective taking into cognizance the socio-cultural differences that underlies the use of context. The Hallidayan account of the notion of context was evaluated and situated within Batonu Language spoken in north-west Nigeria specifically in Kwara State in order to ascertain its applicability to diverse cultures. The data for the study were drawn from different Batonu proverbs and wise sayings in the contexts. Fifteen proverbs and fifteen wise sayings were purposively selected as data for the paper. Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) was deployed and the theoretical framework for the analysis of data. At the end of the analysis, it was discovered that context is intractably intertwined to language and the intended meaning of every communicative event in a particular language. It is, therefore, concluded that meaning and context are inseparable entities and context differs from language to language.
