to recontextualize
- verb
- /ˌriːˌkɒnˈtɛkʧuəlaɪz/
- Jargon
- So to understand agoraphobia in James's terms, we have to recontextualize the fear, put it back in its proper place, or rather, time.
- recontextualized discourses
And so suddenly your brain remaps, recontextualizes the whole thing.
- And so suddenly your brain remaps, recontextualizes the whole thing.
- And this is basically recontextualizing the scientific method.
Examples
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But as King Lear makes evident, the fabula had eventually to be recontextualized to comprehend the increasing importance of women.
Academic text (1992) -
To fully appreciate the artwork, critics must recontextualize it within the cultural movements of the time.
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And this is basically recontextualizing the scientific method.
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We do not so much forget the events of our past as we reinterpret and recontextualize them.
Academic text (2011) -
But I think the way that you have recontextualized these drawings is really striking.
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Once any artwork is recontextualized, there are a thousand or more clues that contributed to its creation.
Blog text (10) -
Globalization has generally recontextualized local music traditions across the world.
Academic text (2011) -
Contemporary performance and teaching practices demonstrate that traditions can be successfully recontextualized.
Academic text (2011) -
Kevin Brand's Piet recontextualizes Sam Nzima's photograph on the wall of the Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town.
Academic text (2007) -
The panadera typically recontextualizes or alters her citations of heroic conventions to imply her target's effeminacy.
Academic text (2003)
Synonyms
To give something a new meaning that changes how people see it
Change the way you think about something to see it in a better way
To explain something again in a different way to give it a new meaning
Think of something in a new way
To put information into its background so people understand it better
To think about something in a new way
To change an idea, story, or image to fit a new setting
To place something in a new context so people see it differently
To give a person or idea a new place in history
To change what something means or how people see its worth
Antonyms
To remove something from the situation where it came from so people can understand or use it on its own
How Reinterpreted
Surface Forms
Morphology
recontextualize = contextualize (semi-transparent) = re + context + ual + ize
The prefix 're-' adds the meaning 'again' transparently, but the base verb 'contextualize' is a multi-step derivation (context + -ual + -ize) that may not be fully obvious to intermediate learners.
Etymology
The word recontextualize breaks into re- 'again', context 'the situation or setting around something', and -ize 'to make'. Think of moving a photo into a new frame: putting something in a new context changes how we understand it, which is what it means to recontextualize.