Dear Chadli,

interesting question - I guess you are referring to spoken utterance and the intent here.

Given that all spoken interaction happens online, I think context might even be the main determiner. Hence we have the whole area of genre and pramatics - in the context of hear of someone's death a speaker would will intentionally want to sound sorrowful and supportive - this is going witht he wording ("sorry for your loss") and also with the prosododic and phonetic markers (slower, lower and quiteter speech). Whereas when close friends are the audience, Gricean maxims can be flouted as the context (people who will know what or who the speaker talks about, informality because wone wants to be part of the group etc. ) provides a framework where this is not just acceptable but probably even expected. Again, even the tonal features are different, given the context.

I hope this gives you some useful pointers.

Hello Chadli,

Context is necssary, and in almost every situation, indispensable for the intent of a speaker/writer. As we are considering context, I assume that "intent" in your question refers to the "message" that the speaker aims to transmit. By this specification, I have narrowed down the possible meanings of the word "intent" for my reply to be clear. That, already, sets the scene for us to appreciate the role of context in communication. This is evident from Michael's answer. He started by saying: "I guess..."

Very few words (if any at all) have only one meaning. Therefore, each time a word is spoken (or written) in isolation, the listener/reader is faced with a choice among all the meanings that the word conveys. It is only when the word is put in a sentence in a well specified context that the listener/reader can arrive at the meaning (intent) of the speaker/writer. Let us get this clearer through an illustration:

Consider the word 'running'. What comes to your mind? I guess you are thinking of something or someone moving in space as a function of time. You would be wrong. That was not the speaker/writers intent. Rather, the speaker/writer was referring to his "running nose"; or might have been referring to running at the next election, or that the printer was left running, or the railway line that runs through the country side, yet none of these refers to real cases of physcal movement in space as a function of time. Now, let us see how context specifies the intent of the speaker.

(1) Chadli will not be "running" at the next parliamentary elections;

(2) Chadli will be running in the annual marathon;

(3) Chadli left his printer (tap, computer...) running without using it

(4) Chadli advised against running the risk of poor investments...

Etc.

You can see from the above few examples that the context endows the same word with different meanings, thus specifying the "intent" of the speaker/writer. You will get more facts and examples from the following article. I hope this helps.

Research Contributory Factors to the Intelligibility of Yoruba Speech...

“without context, the (linguistic) code is incomplete since it encompasses only part of the message” ( HALL e, 1976) . This sentence is part of a model of communication proposed by Edward Hall, in the context of understanding how cultures define communication.

Both Akpan Jimmy Essien and Michael Pace-Sigge have clearly illustrated 'situational context' .

Other forms of context which helps in getting the intent of communication are,

Cultural, social-psychological, temporal etc. As communication is a subject of many divergent disciplines, many such factors are proposed and studied by each of the discipline. Therefore by reading across different areas of studied, one can understand this phenomenon much better. My knowledge is from audiology field, where in we are concerned with breakdown in communication due to hearing impairment and how communication strategies help hearing impaired listener manage the situation.

This is a Very interesting question actually.

you can read more abou this in recent article by agostini - Agostini, B. & Persson, S. (2022). Revisiting the connection between context and language from Hall to Jullien: A contribution to a real intercultural dialogue. Management international / International Management / Gestiòn Internacional, 26(6), 197–212. https://doi.org/10.7202/1095756ar,