Linguistics in text interpretation

It is reasonable to assume that any person at any time (when awake) has a mental model of the current situation- of what kind it may be. Regular text interpretation is then a process of building another mental model, viz. a model of the situation talked about in the text, and then relating this new model to the already existing mental model of the current situation. The mental model of the situation talked about is build by the hearers by i) determining what is said from what is pronounced, and is related to the model of the current situation by ii) determining what is communicated by what is said. Determining what is said (so called literal meaning, the explicature or coded meaning) from what is pronounced, (known as what is explicit) is done by processes that are unconscious, involuntary and obligatory, processes that are universal and necessary for the function of language as a means of communication (Recanati 2003). The processes of determining what is communicated (both presupposition and implicature (Grice 1975)) by what is said are inferential, accessible and optional, not performed by all language users, but dependent on tradition and ability. (1) On another dimension a distinction is made between a) information that the speaker by linguistic means indicates as something that should be taking for granted, b) information that the speaker states as new in order to make the audience take it in. It gives six type of information: 1) names, 2) predicates, 3) what is named (the reference), 4) what is predicated, 5) what is presupposed and 6) the implicature (Togeby 2003, p. 131ff)