Have a look at the picture on the right. At first sight it seems to be a perfect match for the image that we at UBD are trying to project for our newly-revamped degree program, which uses the slogan 'Generation Next' to present the idea that the degree is for young people eager to move forward.Indeed, the image on the right uses a similar slogan overlaid on a picture of a vibrant, dynamic, smiling young couple who clearly have a bright future in front of them.
However, the way I have presented this image is misleading, as I cut it out from something else. Let's now consider the full image, shown a bit further down on the right.
Now you can see that actually this slogan is part of a promotion for a brand of whiskey − not the sort of thing that UBD would be too pleased to be associated with! In fact, the word spirit is here being used with two distinct meanings: one is the spirit of youth and energy; the other is a kind of drink.
This neatly illustrates the fact that language belongs in context, and the interpretation of a phrase can crucially depend on the context in which it is used. Whenever we look at the meaning of some words, we need to consider where, when and how they occur, because this context often, perhaps always, has a strong influence on the way that the words should be interpreted.Over the past few decades, there has been an unfortunate tendency for many linguists to overlook context. Most prominent is the work of followers of Chomsky, in a school often termed Generative Grammar. While I have no intention of deriding the work of Chomsky, as he has provided many profound insights into the nature of language processing in the brain and also the ways that infants acquire their abilities in language, the research of generative grammarians is nearly always based on artificial sentences in isolation. Some of these sentences are labelled as well-formed while others are claimed to be ungrammatical; and I often feel uncomfortable with this, as many of them seem to be marginal. And presenting them out of context also seems to me to a major problem.
