Speakers’ Communicative Intention in a Piece of Writing

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to highlight the distinction between what is said and what is meant, in a word the textual meaning and the contextual meaning. Hence, the author of this study tries to put a line of demarcation between semantics and pragmatics, taking into consideration the speaker’s background and intention as well as the hearer’s understanding of the same speech act produced. It also shows the difficulty of interpreting utterances in a real speech situation as well as in speeches in writing. A good example from Jane Eyre is given to illustrate the hypocritical religious man who allows for his own children what should definitely be forbidden for the orphans. Consequently, his speech act is expressed by a flagrant contradiction. Then a brief literature review explores Lehrer’s scaling method about the similarities and the differences in meaning of language in context. Finally, this humble study argues that what is usually presented in literary texts is not always understood through its semantic meaning because it is never explicitly explained. Therefore, the reader should be aware of all factors even the interlocutors’ degree of familiarity.