Spoken words are interpreted against a background of situational context, not in isolation.
Evidence
The spoken language, moreover, is always interpreted in terms of the situation. References to the weather, to time, to place, to the environment, to the situation of the city, of the province, of the country are given before the word. It is enough for me to have read the papers and to have seen Pierre’s healthy appearance and anxious expression in order for me to understand the “Things aren’t so good” with which he greets me this morning. It is not his health which “is not so good” since he has a rosy complexion, nor is it his business nor his household; it is the situation of our city or of our country. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 1216
Categorization
- XREF: Echoes Heidegger’s hermeneutic circle and anticipates Gadamer—context precedes and shapes the word. — connects to: Semantic context redirects gaze to a word’s meaning only in natural, not degraded, speech.; Speech acts require being heard, not merely uttering — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of…, 2309
- yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Semantic context redirects gaze to a word’s meaning only in natural, not degraded, speech.; Speech acts require being heard, not merely uttering — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of…, 2309