ABSTRACT
Successful communication undoubtedly presupposes, but does not automatically derive from, the mere recognition of the dictionary meanings of the words uttered. A constellation of other factors are involved in utterance interpretation, jointly determining what is referred to as ‘interpersonal meaning’, ‘meaning in context’ or ‘meaning in interaction’ (Thomas 1995). These include the situational context in which the utterance is produced, sociocultural and encyclopaedic knowledge as well as cognitive and conversational principles. Thus, the field of semantics with its rather restricted focus on meaning within the language system, namely the sense of words and the propositions expressed by sentences (Hurford and Heasley 1983: 1–3), fails to account for interpersonal meaning in its totality. The field traditionally associated with the study of meaning in interaction is pragmatics. As Thomas explains (1995: 22; emphasis added):
This [definition of Pragmatics as meaning in interaction] reflects the view that meaning is not something which is inherent in the words alone, nor is produced by the speaker alone, nor by the hearer alone. Making meaning is a dynamic process, involving the negotiation of meaning between speaker and hearer, the context of utterance (physical, social and linguistic) and the meaning potential of an utterance.
