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- Title
THE INTERPRETATION OF DISCOURSE.
- Authors
Sanders, Robert E.
- Abstract
This article presents the interpretation of a discourse. It is obviously desirable that the interpretation of discourse in practical affairs be left as little as possible to chance. Yet ample data have accrued in several research areas to indicate that a number of distinct interpretations can be assigned equally well to the same utterance. It is consequently problematic to support claims that an author can anticipate the diverse ways in which a specific discourse can be interpreted or compose discourse so as to constrain its interpretation. Nonetheless, those claims cannot be abandoned, not just because common experience and intuition alike uphold them, but because otherwise every theoretical frame that treats human communication as methodical and systematic rather than capricious and idiosyncratic is in jeopardy. It is the program in this paper to provide an account of how interpretations can be anticipated and managed even though uttered expressions of language, and perhaps all other utterances as well, are inherently polyguous.
- Subjects
ORAL communication; LECTURES &; lecturing; DISCOURSE; COMMUNICATION; HERMENEUTICS; LANGUAGE &; languages
- Publication
Communication Quarterly, 1981, Vol 29, Issue 3, p209
- ISSN
0146-3373
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1080/01463378109369407