Fontaine's Notion That Context of Culture "Captures" The Potential Of Language

Fontaine (2017: 5):

The difference between context of culture and context of situation according to Halliday (1991) is one of perspective; this difference is not meant to suggest different objects of study. Halliday (1991:276) explains this as follows:

These also are not two different things; they are the same thing seen from different points of view. A situation, as we are envisaging it, is simply an instance of culture; or, to put it the other way round, a culture is the potential behind all the different types of situation that occur. 

Context of culture differs in its relationship to language since it is not tied to a context of situation through text but rather captures its potential. According to Halliday and Matthiessen (2014:32), “a given language is thus interpreted by reference to its semiotic habitat”.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the relation between these two perspectives, context of culture (potential) and context of situation (instance) is instantiation.

[2] The claim here seems to be:

• Context of culture differs from context of situation in its relationship to language 
• because 
• context of culture is not tied to a context of situation through text 
• but rather context of culture captures language's potential

To be clear, relations between context and language do not involve notions of "capturing" or "tying". Context is related to language stratally, by realisation, whereas culture and language (potential) are related to situation and text (instance) by instantiation.

[3] To be clear, as this quote makes explicit, the context ("habitat") of language is semiotic, not material.