103
THE EFFECTS OF CONTEXT ON UTTERANCE INTERPRETATION: SOME
QUESTIONS AND SOME ANSWERS
Melinda Sinclair
Department of General Linguistics
University of Stellenbosch
1. Some questions about context and interpretation
One of the most important problems in the study of language
use is that of the interpretation of utterances. For our purposes
this problem can be formulated in the form of the following
question:
(1) The interpretation question
How can an addressee - a hearer or a reader - determine what
information a communicator - a speaker or a writer - intends
to convey to him by means of a certain utterance?
In this paper I want to consider one aspect of the answer to
this question. In considering this aspect of the interpretation
question, I am going to foc~s on the interpretation of utterances
of single sentences "single sentence utterances", for short.
But the interpretation question (1) arises not only for single
sentence utterances. It also arises in the case of "extended"
utterances - utterances which are the realization of a series of
sentences. The term "discourse" is normally used to refer to such
extended, or multi-sentence, utterances ,1 Given that there is an
interpretation question for single sentence utterances as well as
for multi-sentence utterances (=discourse), one should of course
ask whether there is any connection between the answers to these
Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 25, 1992, 103-132 doi: 10.5774/25-0-78
, 104
two questio~s. In the last part of the paper I briefly consider
this matter.
In the study of utterance interpretation there is almost
unanimous agreement on one point: it is not only an addressee's
linguistic knowledge or his gramml:Lticalcompetence which
enables him to successfully interpret utterances. There is, quite
simply, a huge gap between, on the one hand, the
information/meaning which an addressee can recover from an
utterance on the basis of linguistic knowledge alone and, on the
other hand, the information/meaning which the communicator
intends to convey by means of this utterance. 2 Consider for
instance the interpretation of the following, deceptively simple,
utterance.
(2) Peter's bat is too big.
The meaning which a hearer can assign to this utterance
solely on the basis of his ling'uistic knowledge can be
represented roughly as follows:
(3) 'Some hitting instrument, or selme flying mammal, somehow
associated with some entity bearing the name Peter has, at
the time of utterance, some property of bigness to an extent
which is excessive relative to sc)meunidentified reference-
point. '3
Let us call the meaning represented in (3) the "linguistic
meaning" of (2). Now clearly this linguistic meaning of (2) is
vague and underspecified in several respects. This can be
highlighted by considering a number of questions which are left
unanswered by (3), but which would normally have to be answered
by a hearer to whom (2) is addressed.
* Who is the referent of the referential expression Peter?
Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 25, 1992, 103-132 doi: 10.5774/25-0-78
, 105
* Should the ambiguous term bat be interpreted in its
'hitting instrument' sense or in its 'flying mammal' sense?
* What is the precise nature of the relation between Peter
and the bat? (Is it the bat that Peter is holding, or the
one that belongs to him, or the one that he is using, or the
one that he intends to buy, and so on?)
* How is the time reference of the Present Tense of the verb
is to be fixed relative to the 'now' of the specific time of
utterance?
* What is the standard, or reference point, relative to
which too big is to be interpreted?
Intuitively it should be clear that
information the
contained in (3) - a representation of the linguistic meaning of
(2) - falls far short of the information which a speaker would
normally intend to convey by means of (2). To make this point
more concrete, imagine for yourself how a hearer would answer the
questions left "unanswered" by the linguistic meaning (3) of the
utterance (2) in the following situation:
(4) The cricket situation
Imagine that the speaker and hearer are watching a game of
cricket when the speaker utters (2). Suppose, moreover, that
an individual called Peter, known to both speaker and
hearer, is batting at the time of utterance, and that he is
faring less well than could be expected. In addition,
suppose that at some point prior to the utterance of (2) the
speaker and hearer have been speculating about the cause of
Peter's poor batting performance.
Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 25, 1992, 103-132 doi: 10.5774/25-0-78
THE EFFECTS OF CONTEXT ON UTTERANCE INTERPRETATION: SOME
QUESTIONS AND SOME ANSWERS
Melinda Sinclair
Department of General Linguistics
University of Stellenbosch
1. Some questions about context and interpretation
One of the most important problems in the study of language
use is that of the interpretation of utterances. For our purposes
this problem can be formulated in the form of the following
question:
(1) The interpretation question
How can an addressee - a hearer or a reader - determine what
information a communicator - a speaker or a writer - intends
to convey to him by means of a certain utterance?
In this paper I want to consider one aspect of the answer to
this question. In considering this aspect of the interpretation
question, I am going to foc~s on the interpretation of utterances
of single sentences "single sentence utterances", for short.
But the interpretation question (1) arises not only for single
sentence utterances. It also arises in the case of "extended"
utterances - utterances which are the realization of a series of
sentences. The term "discourse" is normally used to refer to such
extended, or multi-sentence, utterances ,1 Given that there is an
interpretation question for single sentence utterances as well as
for multi-sentence utterances (=discourse), one should of course
ask whether there is any connection between the answers to these
Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 25, 1992, 103-132 doi: 10.5774/25-0-78
, 104
two questio~s. In the last part of the paper I briefly consider
this matter.
In the study of utterance interpretation there is almost
unanimous agreement on one point: it is not only an addressee's
linguistic knowledge or his gramml:Lticalcompetence which
enables him to successfully interpret utterances. There is, quite
simply, a huge gap between, on the one hand, the
information/meaning which an addressee can recover from an
utterance on the basis of linguistic knowledge alone and, on the
other hand, the information/meaning which the communicator
intends to convey by means of this utterance. 2 Consider for
instance the interpretation of the following, deceptively simple,
utterance.
(2) Peter's bat is too big.
The meaning which a hearer can assign to this utterance
solely on the basis of his ling'uistic knowledge can be
represented roughly as follows:
(3) 'Some hitting instrument, or selme flying mammal, somehow
associated with some entity bearing the name Peter has, at
the time of utterance, some property of bigness to an extent
which is excessive relative to sc)meunidentified reference-
point. '3
Let us call the meaning represented in (3) the "linguistic
meaning" of (2). Now clearly this linguistic meaning of (2) is
vague and underspecified in several respects. This can be
highlighted by considering a number of questions which are left
unanswered by (3), but which would normally have to be answered
by a hearer to whom (2) is addressed.
* Who is the referent of the referential expression Peter?
Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 25, 1992, 103-132 doi: 10.5774/25-0-78
, 105
* Should the ambiguous term bat be interpreted in its
'hitting instrument' sense or in its 'flying mammal' sense?
* What is the precise nature of the relation between Peter
and the bat? (Is it the bat that Peter is holding, or the
one that belongs to him, or the one that he is using, or the
one that he intends to buy, and so on?)
* How is the time reference of the Present Tense of the verb
is to be fixed relative to the 'now' of the specific time of
utterance?
* What is the standard, or reference point, relative to
which too big is to be interpreted?
Intuitively it should be clear that
information the
contained in (3) - a representation of the linguistic meaning of
(2) - falls far short of the information which a speaker would
normally intend to convey by means of (2). To make this point
more concrete, imagine for yourself how a hearer would answer the
questions left "unanswered" by the linguistic meaning (3) of the
utterance (2) in the following situation:
(4) The cricket situation
Imagine that the speaker and hearer are watching a game of
cricket when the speaker utters (2). Suppose, moreover, that
an individual called Peter, known to both speaker and
hearer, is batting at the time of utterance, and that he is
faring less well than could be expected. In addition,
suppose that at some point prior to the utterance of (2) the
speaker and hearer have been speculating about the cause of
Peter's poor batting performance.
Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 25, 1992, 103-132 doi: 10.5774/25-0-78
