ABSTRACT
Context is what gives significance to all our experience; for instance an accident which takes place during a rugby match is normally regarded quite differently from an identical incident elsewhere, and a man who says 'This car performs reasonably
Paralinguistic features
The given and the new
superfluous explanations, 'Thank you mother, I know that'. This balancing of presuppositions is one of the major skills
involved in successful communication. From complex decisions such as whether or not to remind Charlie that Helen is Kathy's daughter; the one who went to France and he met the Christmas before last, or simply to use the name Helen; to the apparently simple one of whether it would be appropriate to use 'a house' or 'the house', the skill is that of putting one's self in the position of the other person and then mobilising the linguistic knowledge that enables one to signal '1 know that you know that we both know X.'
