ABSTRACT
It is the goal of this chapter to explicate and test some central aspects of the theory presented in Chapter 3, and the framework in which it is set. This is accomplished in two ways: first, by offering an interpretation of what roles meaning and truth play in a discourse setting; and second. by examining in detail several kinds of discourse situations and the interaction of speech act interpretation and context of utterance. The first of these approaches is preliminary to the second, and serves as a general discussion of the semantics of discourse situations, where the problem of truth is redefined as a problem of orientation in a discourse situation and the evaluation of interpretive constituents. The second approach proceeds through the discussion of three cases, each successively more complex and more complete as an arena for testing speech act theory.
