ABSTRACT
The previous chapter dealt with the general knowledge that people have about the language they speak. However, people apply this knowledge when they speak to one another and understand one another in specific acts of communication. In this chapter we look more at the specific features of communication, beginning with observations about non-linguistic signs and how we get meanings from them. We introduce a distinction between a sentence, a language construction, and an utterance, a particular act of speaking or writing. An utterance is typically part of a larger discourse. In spoken discourse meanings are partly communicated by the emphases and melodies that are called prosody. Vocal and gestural signs can also be the means of transmitting meanings.
