Situational language teaching,one of the influential and profound language teaching methods,is rooted in the“context of situation”theory,which is put forward by London School.Malinowski thinks language is bound up with situation through his primitive culture researching experience.He mentions the elements of culture,custom etc.besides situation contribute to the meaninggenerating process.However,it is Firth who clearly includes these in his situation theory.In addition,he invents the rather famous“typical context of situation”theory.His student,Halliday inherits his thoughts and further improves it by advocating the three factors,mode,tenor and field,in determining the typical situation from a sociological perspective.
