Knowledge context: ways of seeing

The third and final kind of context that we will consider is knowledge context. This relates to encyclopaedic knowledge rather than context of use or sentential context. The fact that each individual has different experiences entails that each individual also has different mental representations relating to their experience of particular entities. This creates an encyclopaedic knowledge context that can influence how words are interpreted. Cruse (2000; Croft and Cruse 2004) calls this phenomenon ways of seeing. For example, Croft and Cruse (2004: 138) show that the expression an expensive hotel can be interpreted in (at least) three different ways depending upon ‘ways of seeing’:

In sum, Cruse (1986) refers to contextual effects upon interpretation that we have discussed in this section as contextual modulation. This idea is in keeping with the encyclopaedic view of meaning that we discussed in Chapter 7. Contextual factors modulate or conceptually highlight (in Croft’s (1993) terms), different aspects of our knowledge associated with a particular entity. As we have seen, these contextual factors might include the situation in which an expression is used, the sentence in which an expression occurs and/or the encyclopaedic knowledge that particular individuals bring to bear upon the interpretation of an expression. The idea of contextual modulation is reminiscent of Barsalou’s theory of background dependent framing, which we introduced in Chapter 7. For example, the way we interpret the expression shoe depends in large measure on the frame we activate (HUMAN versus HORSE, for example). As the discussion in this section has demonstrated, language use involves a complex interaction between polysemy, contextual factors and encyclopaedic knowledge.

اخر الاخبار

اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

شعبة الشهداء والجرحى تباشر مرحلة التدقيق الشامل لأكثر من 10 آلاف إضبارة مؤرشفة

قسم الشؤون الفكرية يصدر كتابًا تخصصيًّا في إعراب الصحيفة السجادية وبيانها

أكاديمية التطوير الإداري تنظم ورشة عن الإتيكيت الوظيفي لطلبتها

سماحة السيد الصافي يزور معهد الكفيل للنطق والتأهيل المدرسي ويشيد بالدور الإنساني والتربوي لملاكاته

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

العلاج بالماء البارد.. باحثون يكشفون فوائده الصحية

من دون صالة رياضية.. عادة بسيطة لتحسين الصحة وخسارة الوزن

لصحة القلب وتفادي السرطان.. استهلك هذا النوع من الطعام

دراسة تحذر من خطر شرب القهوة في أكواب البلاستيك

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

إنجاز طبي تاريخي.. جراحة قلب بلا شق في الصدر

اليابان.. مراحيض توفر فحص للحالة الصحية عبر "تحليل البراز" !

اختراق واسع لمنصة "إنستغرام".. ونشر بيانات على "الدارك ويب"

علماء يحذرون: هكذا سيفنى كوكب الأرض

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Meaning construction in cognitive semantics

Sentence meaning in formal semantics

Meaning construction and mental spaces

Word meaning and radial categories Summery

Sentential context: facets

Usage context: subsenses

The importance of context for polysemy

Beyond prepositions

Illustration of a radial category based on Principled Polysemy

Establishing the prototypical sense

Distinguishing between senses

The Principled Polysemy approach