From context to contextualization

It seems to be a cornmon-place enough statement to note that language depends on con-text. For example, under the notion of deixis, certain linguistic structures (i.e., deictics like I, here, or now) show a dependence on context that is thought to be essential. However, the relationship between language and context is far from clear and has been the centre of a debate which has gained mornenturn over the past ten years. The controversy begins with the question of how much in language and which parts of it are context-dependent, but it also, and perhaps more s~bstant ial l~, includes the question of how the relationship between language and context should be conceptualized in more theoretical terms. In this paper, 1 will follow some lines of argument of this debate. 1 will start with the traditional notion of context-in-language and show that it is too restrictive by listing linguistic struc-tures beyond deixis which must be interpreted with reference to context in order to be understood properly. 1 will also give a typology of contextual elements (Le., co-textual fea-tures, physical surroundings of the speech situation, social situation, participants common background knowledge and the channel or mediurn) which may play a role in understand-ing. In the second part of the paper, 1 will deal with the context-text link and 1 will try to show that the notion of contextualization is superior to that of context-Apendence to account in an adequate theoretical and empirical way for this link