Context and Implicitness: Consequences for Qualitative and Quantitative Context Analysis

In the framework of discourse analysis the relationship between explicit and implicit meaning is discussed. The discussion is based on verbal discriminations in private and public discourses. Implicit meanings of sentences cannot be inferred directly from their content or from the meanings of individual words within an utterance. Rather, they can be understood from the context in which the utterance is made. The following hypotheses are examined: (1) Explicit discriminations are apparent in the expressions or contents of utterances. (2) Implicit discriminations are relationships between utterances and their context. (3) Implicit discriminations often become manifest by means of verbal cues, and by separate utterances. (4) Explicit and implicit meanings are often inverse manifestations of the same evaluative dimension. The relationship between explicit and implicit discriminations is illustrated on the basis of a text from a British newspaper. The investigation yields an understanding of verbal discrimination which stems primarily from categorization and evaluation and allocates only secondary significance to whether it is the ingroup or the outgroup which is categorized and whether the evaluation is positive or negative. Finally, reference will be made to the relevance of the relationship between explicit and implicit meanings for qualitative and quantitative context analysis. It is fundamental to the study that the textual material (i.e. the signifiers) is literally taken as the basis for the investigation and is essentially measured against itself, so that identities, differences and opposites become obvious.