Social Meaning

Language is used in time and space. When a sentence is produced in time and space, it evokes a meaning different from that produced in isolation. I will use the term utterance to refer to a sentence in context. The meaning of an utterance may vary depending upon the interactional context in which the utterance occurs, and which it creates at the same time. I refer to such a meaning as social meaning. The use and non-use of honorifics illustrates the nature of social meaning. The Japanese equivalent of the English expression 'Congratulations!' can be uttered with or without the honorific form goza-imasu ('to exist') as in omedetoo gozai-masu ('congratulation + exist (polite) + masu') or omedetoo ('congratulation'). The utterance omedetoo ('congratulation') without the honorific form gozai-masu can be interpreted as lacking politeness toward the addressee and thus may offend the addressee, if, for example, omedetoo ('congratulation') is uttered by a lower status person to a higher status person in a formal setting. Although the propositional content of the utterance expresses congratulations, at another level of meaning, i.e. at the level of social meaning, this utterance may evoke negative affect. Or, consider the utterance, 'She is a great teacher'. This utterance may indicate various social meanings such as the speaker's genuine admiration for the teacher or a sarcastic attitude toward the teacher if it is uttered with a certain tone of voice. If this utterance is produced slowly and loudly, the speaker may be talking to a foreigner (foreigner talk). Intonation patterns may also affect the social meaning of an utterance (Gumperz, 1986).

The social meaning of an utterance may depend on the place an utterance occupies in a conversational sequence (Duranti & Goodwin, 1992; Heritage, 1984; Levinson, 1983; Sacks et al., 1974, 1977).