Abstract

The significance of context to the proper interpretation of texts has been known for millennia; it is implicit in some of Aristotle’s recommendations in Rhetoric and Quintilian’s in Institutes that rhetoric should ideally be appropriate to what was, post Augustine, called its context. Malinowski wrote that a stick may be used for different purposes in different contexts, e.g. digging, punting, walking, fighting. Exactly the same is true of language expressions, e.g. a word which is an insult in one context may be an expression of camaraderie or endearment in another. Stalnaker’s claim ‘context [is] a body of available information: the common ground’ is nearly, but not quite, right. I define common ground as in Allan 2013b. The speaker/writer/signer makes presumptions about common ground which may properly be called presuppositions, but I argue that utterances carry pragmatic entailments rather than presuppositions, such that where A pragmatically entails B, B cannot – given A – be denied without creating a paradox, absurdity, or contradiction. I distinguish three aspects of context: C1\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$ C1 $$\end{document}, C2\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$ C2 $$\end{document}, and C3\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$ C3 $$\end{document}. C1\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$ C1 $$\end{document} is the world spoken of, which is largely identified from co-text; to oversimplify, it captures what is said about what at some world. C2\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$ C2 $$\end{document} is the world spoken in, the situation of utterance; it captures who does the saying to whom, and where and when this takes place. C3\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$ C3 $$\end{document} is the situation of interpretation, the circumstances under which the hearer/reader/viewer interprets what the speaker/writer/signer said, and these may be very different in space and time from C2\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$ C2 $$\end{document}, which may impact the interpretation.