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In:Patterns of Context: Modelling cultural and contextual influence in utterance interpretation
Edited by Elke Diedrichsen and Frank Liedtke
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 356] 2026
► pp. 123–147

The role of the situation in utterance interpretation

How context and common ground inform a speech act

 | Technological University Dublin
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
It is argued that the situation, taken within a pragmatic perspective, is an essential component within a model of utterance interpretation with a clear role in binding together relevant aspects of context and common ground. The function of a situation is to provide us with the means to relate a subset of context and common ground to the resolution of underdetermined components of the speech act, and the construction of what is meant meaning from language-in-use. Consequently, a speech act needs to be interpreted via a given situation, along with context and common ground. An advantage of employing a situation in the analysis of a speech act is that it relates the input utterance through to the output of speech act meaning.
Article outline
  • 1.The situation in a pragmatic perspective
  • 2.The situation of a speech act
    • 2.1Defining a situation
    • 2.2Motivating a situation as a cognitive object
    • 2.3A situation encapsulates a speech act
  • 3.The importance of context in speech act meaning
  • 4.Common ground, shared knowledge, and the situation
    • 4.1Common ground and knowledge
    • 4.2Knowledge flow through a situation and the frame problem
    • 4.3Unarticulated constituents and pragmatic templates
  • 5.Leveraging the situation model
  • 6.Discussion
  • Author queries
  • Notes
  • References
References (29)
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