Out of context

When we hear context, we usually think of the immediate physical situation in which an utterance is made (or, for that matter, of the words surrounding an utterance, more technically known as co-text). Widdowson makes us see that context is often just a construct, with the physical context being irrelevant. He invites us to invisage this utterance heard in a dialogue between two friends sitting on a train: He has put it in a safe place and it will not be found. Here, clearly, the train is irrelevant. The utterance would have the same context if it was heard on the platform, in the station café or on the way to the station. (Widdowson, H.G.: Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007: 20)