Stephen Downes

The meaning of a sentence is not contained in the sentence. There are many examples showing this to be the case, for example, "You can't park here," which "could be making a prediction about their addressee's parking abilities, ordering them to move their car, explaining a local law, or improvising a work of fiction." Wittgenstein would say "meaning is use". Paul Grice offers a slightly different account, based on the communicator's intent, or to use J.L. Austin's terminology: speech acts. "Which kind of speech act one performs depends on which kind of response one communicatively intends to produce in an addressee." This article expands on Grice's theory and looks at competing theories, helping readers think more deeply about what we mean when we mean things.