Article published in:
What is a Context?: Linguistic approaches and challengesEdited by Rita Finkbeiner, Jörg Meibauer and Petra B. Schumacher
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 196] 2012
► pp. 55–80
Theorising context
The case of clinical pragmatics
This article challenges the idea that it is possible to produce a theory of context. Such a theory, it is argued, is unintelligible by virtue of the fact that it leaves us with no prior rational concepts with which to make sense of or understand a theory of context. This argument is developed in relation to the treatment of context in clinical pragmatics. The article examines how clinicians and experimentalists examine pragmatic disorders in children and adults. This examination, it is contended, ends up distorting the notion of context that is integral to utterance (pragmatic) interpretation. It is argued that this distortion arises when we mistakenly believe that we can assume a metaphysical standpoint in our deliberations about context.
Published online: 23 October 2012
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.196.06cum
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.196.06cum
Cited by
Cited by 5 other publications
Cummings, Louise
2013.
In Perspectives on Linguistic Pragmatics [Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, 2],
► pp. 23 ff. 
Cummings, Louise
2015. Theory of mind in utterance interpretation: the case from clinical pragmatics.
Frontiers in Psychology 6
Cummings, Louise
2017.
In Pragmatics and Law [Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, 10],
► pp. 349 ff.
Cummings, Louise
2017.
In Research in Clinical Pragmatics [Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, 11],
► pp. 587 ff.
Kozubíková Šandová, Jana
2020. Context as a Dynamic Construct and the Problem of Context Sensitivity.
Studia Linguistica 74:1 ► pp. 42 ff.
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