My interpretation of meaning potential might run as follows: The meaning potential of a word or a sentence is all the possible information that the word has been used to convey, either by a single individual or, on a larger level, by a community. Speakers and listeners use those potentials of words to indicate and understand specific things in context. That is to say, meaning potentials can connect an expression both to its “dictionary meaning” and to more specifically meaning of remembered uses concerning its context. In order to further explain this definition, I will first explain a characteristic of “meaning potentials” and then discuss specifically how this characteristic might be applied to real-life situations.
One of the most significant characteristics of meaning potentials in my understanding is that the contexts determine the way in which the meaning potential is presented. When a language context is altered or reconstructed, its meaning potential goes with it, and may be extended with richer meaning potentials deriving from the new context. Take a real-life situation for example, almost everyone has had the experience of carrying on a conversation with an intimate friend on a private topic only to have that interaction interrupted by the arrival of a third party who makes it impossible for the original participants to continue the scene in the same way. As a result, the topic of conversation will likely shift, as well as the manner of speaking, body positions, voice volume, and many other possible variables. In a sense then, sensing that there has been a shift in scene will result in a shift in the meaning potential of the language.
This characteristic is empirically evident in the following two examples. Let’s get started with a frequently-used word--bottled water, which has an almost agreed meaning of “purified water in bottles”. However, the function of the word will still vary depending on whether it is used by an drink sales person as an...