Contextualism

= Definition: =

The contextualism this entry will address does not specifically correspond to the general sense of “contextual,” often the setting or environment of an event or text. Instead, contextualism here refers to a system of perceiving or understanding the world, a system that emphasizes a wholeness and interconnectivity. It was initially developed by Stephen Pepper and introduced into composition studies by Louise Wetherbee Phelps.


 * Contextualism as Defined by Pepper and Phelps**

In his book, //World Hypotheses: A Study in Evidence//, Pepper identifies four world hypotheses that represent ways in which we perceive and make sense of the world: formism, mechanism, contextualism, and organicism. The root metaphor for contextualism is the historic event (or just event). By focusing on the event, contextualism can emphasize the interconnectivity of activities and the changing nature of context. Change and novelty are important parts of contextualism, and while this suggests a certain level of chaos, contextualism incorporates both order and disorder, not privileging either since one might produce the other. The event in contextualism is made up of two features: quality and texture. The quality of an event is the entire experience of the event; the texture of an event consists of the parts that make up the whole. In short, both of these features depend on each other to form the meaning of an event (238). The goal of contextualism is not to come to some final or total analysis/understanding of an event. Instead, contextualism suggests that our analysis of an event constantly puts us into new events; thus we have choices in how we analyze an event, making contextualism a horizontal theory (in that it does not really have a beginning or an end) (249-51).

Building on Pepper’s work, Phelps defines contextualism as a theory “in which all parts are not only interdependent but mutually defining and transactive, so that through their shifting relationships they continually constitute new parts of elements as well as new structures” (32). Contextualism, then, goes beyond an understanding of context in the general sense. It is “a way of knowing that corresponds to the infinite complexity and inherent possibilities for chaos or order in nature itself” (40). As a system, contextualism embraces both the different responses to and perspectives of an event individuals might have and the tensions that go along with these differences. These multiple views serve to develop and limit one another (52). For Phelps (as for Pepper), contextualism, then, is not an attempt at complete understanding and control of an event. Instead, it is a “relatively adequate” view by which we attempt to understand reality (57, 60).


 * Contextualism and Composition Studies**

Most important in Phelps’s discussions of contextualism is the development of contextualism as significant for composition studies. In //Composition as a Human Science//, Phelps seeks to position composition studies within the intellectual and cultural changes at the end of the twentieth century, especially postmodernism (41). Contextualism becomes important for this work once we understand that discourse event may be the more appropriate root metaphor for contextualism now (41).

Furthermore, contextualism not only gives composition studies a central position in these intellectual and cultural changes; it also provide some useful correctives to some of the problems of postmodern thought. The first addresses realism, starting with the reality of the subject matter of composition studies: communication. Phelps notes that postmodern thought, with its emphasis on fragmentation, creates a skeptical view of the possibility of real, meaningful communication. Contextualism, rather, views communication as not only possible but essential: “communication is the norm of life and of semiotic systems like human society,” uniting discourse and lived experience (53, 54). The second corrective applies to the productive possibilities of contextualism. Rather than relying on critique alone, contextualism seeks “engaged and committed activity even in the face of human finitude” (56). This means an acceptance of difference and multiple perspectives, and rather than perceiving these as “paralyzing” or isolating contextualism—drawing on ideas of Bakhtin’s dialogism and Burke’s identification—can allow us to view such differences as possibilities for novelty and change (56-57).

Finally, Phelps suggests that contextualism can offer for composition studies a fuller sense of discourse theory. Contextualism is a system of wholeness (but with the understanding that this can only be “relatively adequate” because of the constant fluctuations of patterns and interpretations). So rather than calling for the partitioning elements of discourse off for individual study or for the reliance on one partial theory of discourse, contextualism makes the case for viewing the parts of discourse and discourse theories as complementary and mutually informing each other through their relationships and transactions (60).

= Competing Definition(s): =

= References =

Pepper, Stephen C. //World Hypotheses: A Study in Evidence//. Berkeley: U of California P, 1942. Print. Phelps, Louise Wetherbee. //Composition as a Human Science: Contributions to the Self-Understanding of a Discipline//. New York: Oxford UP, 1988. Print.