ABSTRACT
A great deal of everyday, commonplace social conversation concerns explanations: explanations to others about one’s own beliefs and behaviors; explanations to oneself and others about people; explanations about social, scientific, political, economic, and even theological phenomena. Popular newspapers, magazines and television programs seek to offer explanations to their consumers, using metaphors, analogies, models, and language they can understand. This chapter concerns lay explanations as opposed to scientific explanations. It concentrates on the content rather than on the process of lay explanations and the understanding of social rather than strictly personal phenomena. Furthermore, because the context in which the explanation is offered shapes both its form and content, this chapter concentrates on certain contextual effects.
