John Rupert Firth: Context

John Rupert Firth was English linguist. Explore interesting quotes on context.
John Rupert Firth: 28 quotes0 likes

“In English we have noticed twenty-five consonant and about twenty vowel phonemes. Although individual pronunciations may differ, the phonemic habits of the same group or class will be similar. They will make similar use of heterophony. Words not phonetically separated — that is, homophones — may be separated by function or by experiential context”

John Rupert Firth

Source: Speech, 1930, p. 182

“Meaning… is to be regarded as a complex of contextual relations, and phonetics, grammar, lexicography, and semantics each handles its own components of the complex in its appropriate context.”

John Rupert Firth

Source: "The Technique of Semantics." 1935, p. 54

“The complete meaning of a word is always contextual, and no study of meaning apart from context can be taken seriously.”

John Rupert Firth

Source: "The Technique of Semantics." 1935, p. 37

“The study of such words as work, labour, trade, employ, occupy, play, leisure, time, hours, means, self-respect, in all their derivatives and compounds in sociologically significant contexts during the last twenty years would be quite enlightening. So would the study of words particularly associated with the dress, occupations, and ambitions of women, or the language of advertising, especially of quackery, entertainments, food, drink, or of political movements and propaganda.”

John Rupert Firth

1957, p. 13
"The Technique of Semantics." 1935