Editorial

Abstract

Social/interpersonal context plays an important role in shaping the meaning of an utterance. Social context is, strictly speaking, extralinguistic (Lakoff, 1972: 911). Lakoff argues that “one must be able to refer to assumptions about the social context of an utterance, as well as to other implicit assumptions made by the participants in a discourse” (907). Regarding the complexity and changeable characteristic of social context, one should never take for granted that one rule of communication can apply in all situations. A communication under a special condition requires different rule application; something that is polite in normal context may become rude in a special context. Failure to observe the social context leads to a communication failure such as misinterpretation and offense. Therefore, one must excercise his/her sensitivenes even to the slightest change in the social context in order to make the communication succesful.