2.5 Context
The term "context" has special significance in functional grammar. Text construes, or carries, context. Context is what gives text life. It helps us clarify and make sense of language in text, which is inherently ambiguous. Two kinds of context are relevant here. One is context of culture, which refers to the norms, customs, ideas, beliefs, assumptions, meanings, and attitudes shared by members of a discourse community. It is what gives rise to the notion of genre (discussed later). Another is context of situation, which refers to the immediate context in which a speech event (oral or written) takes place. It has three parts: the field (i.e., the subject matter), the tenor (i.e., the relationships among the participants in the speech event), and mode (i.e., the circumstances in which the communication takes place). It is what gives rise to the notion of register (discussed later).
Because of this mutually inclusive relationship between text and context, we are able to deduce context from text and predict language use in a text when given a context. For example, Text 2-1 represents a speech event likely taking place in a broadcasting booth, where a TV or radio analyst (Harry Carpenter in this case) was making play-by-play commentaries about the boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. It is the way language is used in the text — interactive, informal, fragmented, and dynamic— that enables us to make that inference. On the other hand, if we are asked to reflect on the same event and write about it, we are likely to use a more detached, integrated, and formal style, as Text 2-2 shows. When the topic is more technical and the audience more specialized, we are likely to use a significant number of technical terminology (e.g., gene, embryonic, RNAs) and adopt a discursive style that is much less interactive and considerably more formal, dense, abstract, distilled, static, and rigorous, as is shown in Text 2-3 (Gupta & Musunuru, 2014, p. 4154), an excerpt on gene editing from a scholarly journal in medicine.
Text 2-1
Suddenly Ali looks very tired indeed. In fact Ali, at times now, looks as though he can barely lift his arms up … Oh, he's got him with a right hand! He's got him! Oh, you can't believe it. And I don't think Foreman's going to get up. He's trying to beat the count. And he's out! OH MY GOD, he's won the title back at 32! Muhammad Ali!
(Source: https://www.thenational.ae/sport/harry-was-voice-of-boxing-1.508053)
Text 2-2
By the seventh round, Foreman had essentially punched himself out. His arms were tired and sometimes hanging on his side. Ali then used his speed and energy to do damage to Foreman, who was just trying to get in one good punch for a knockout. Ali taunted Foreman by saying, "George, is that all you've got?" Foreman realized that it was all he had.
In the eighth round, Muhammad Ali knocked out George Foreman to regain the World Heavyweight Championship.
The fight so devastated Foreman psychologically that he retired from boxing at age 28. He became a minister, became a mellow and friendly person, and later had a comeback in boxing at age 45.
(Source: http://www.school-for-champions.com/competition/boxing_strategy_in_ali-foreman_fight.htm#.Vrtiyykfn5c)
Text 2-3
The classical method for gene modification is homologous recombination. This approach has been widely used in mouse embryonic stem cells to generate germline knockout or knockin mice. A disadvantage is that it typically takes more than a year to generate a genetically modified mouse using the standard approach. Furthermore, similar attempts at using homologous recombination in human cells have proven to be far more challenging, and alternative approaches to knock down gene expression, such as antisense oligonucleotides and short interfering RNAs, have instead become standard. However, these approaches only transiently reduce gene expression, and the effect is usually incomplete and can often affect off-target genes. These shortcomings have fueled the demand for more effective methods of gene modification.