The complexity of context: Guest editors' introduction

Cataloged from PDF version of article.As with other widely used notions that are commonly referred to in everyday activities without much hesitation, context is difficult to analyze scientifically and grasp in all its different demeanors. In our routine communicative activities, context is exploited both in production and in comprehension, and is strictly related to another problematic notion, viz. meaning. Thus Bateson (1979: 15): ‘‘Without context, words and actions have no meaning at all. This is true not only of human communication in words but also of all communication whatsoever, of all mental process, of all mind, including that which tells the sea anemone how to grow and the amoeba what he should do next.’’..