The role of context in the interpretation of Southern Sotho discourse

Abstract

Utterances normally mean more than they actually say on the surface, and this extra information is either contained in or inferrable from the context in which such utterances are made. The context of utterances is in the first place linguistic. This means that the complete and accurate interpretation of the utterance depends on what has already been said and/or what has still to be said. This linguistic context can either be explicit, as in REFERENCE and DEIXIS or implicit as in PRESUPPOSITION and IMPLICATURE, where its meaning has to be inferred. In the second p 1 ace, the context of utterance is situational, meaning that utterances are made and should thus be interpreted in their situations of utterance. Even the linguistic context therefore occurs within the situational context. Situational context is normally the extralinguistic environment in which an utterance is made and also/or the social and cultural context of utterance.