Word Police Returns

Dear Educational Technologists,

don't you agree with me that the word context should be erased permanently from the vocabulary of our researchers and students? That word is, for reasons unknown to me, both overused and misused. My English isn't flawless but the sloppy use of the word context just drives me mad nowadays.

Let me take some examples of misusing the word context. These examples are not based on actual articles and if they happen to be found in some of our articles, that is purely coincidental ;-)

• "...in their own cultural or societal contex..."

Why not "...in their own culture or society..."? Context does not bring any extra information to this sentence.

• "...in a developing country context..."

Again, why not "...in a developing country..."? Why use context if you can just say what you mean. Use special words if they crystallize or clarify something. Here context doesn't clarify, it confuses.

• "...problem solving in a context..."

Oh... Like... which context? What context? Does it mean "solving problems that are presented in a familiar setting"? Or something else? "In a context" just makes this sentence vague.

• "...in the local context..."

Right. Whatever.

• "Learning in context"
  

I blame people from pedagogics and education for the prevalence of this. The phrase just does not mean anything to anyone outside the ranks of the context-people (but to the advocates of the Context Movement it may not mean much more either). Perhaps write "learning that takes the learners' {culture / habits / whatever} into account" or "learning new stuff based on some familiar stuff" or "sneaking some new stuff into routine things" or something else that makes sense.

• "...relevant within the context that it is applied to..."

How is something applied to a context? Contextual means "of, involving, or depending on a context." What is meant here, is apparently

• "relevant to the situation or circumstances where it is used", or
• "relevant for the people living in the culture where it is used", or
• "being familiar to the people", or
  
• "making sense to the people"....

...well, actually, probably anything except CONTEXT!!!

• "...skills within a particular context..."

Huh? I really don't get it.

• "...apply knowledge and skills simultaneously, within context..."

What what WHAT? What could be more self-evidently ALWAYS "within a particular context" than using your knowledge and skills? Can you actually apply your knowledge and skills out of any context?

I really don't know what this last one means, not even in its context-- -- And lo and behold - we have arrived at what this buzzword originally meant: "The part of a text or statement that surrounds a particular word or passage and determines its meaning".

I suggest that in the future, whenever the word context is used in any other meaning than the original meaning above, the author has to either write a 300-word essay of why context is a good word in that particular case, or pay 1 euro to our recreational fund. My prediction is that we can buy our whole group a trip to Ibiza by this December.