The Role of Context in Utterance Interpretation

This paper discusses the function of context in utterance interpretation.In speech communication,context plays a very important role in expressing utterance meaning appropriately and understanding that precisely.Context can be classified into three kinds,which is context of utterance,context of situation,and context of culture.Each has its own function in interpreting utterance.On one hand,the understanding of utterance-meaning relies a lot on the context,without which the utterance meaning cannot be fully interpreted.On the other hand,context gives some restrictions to the choice of utterance in a certain communication.Moreover,all the ambiguities of utterance can be cleared up through the context.