For its
exact meaning, A word depends on the context in which it is used. This is so
for ambiguous words, words with 2 or more different meanings. Examples for
English are ‘bank’ (river bank, money bank), ‘break’ (coffee break, to break
something into pieces), etc.
But even
words that have but a single meaning depend on the specifics of that meaning on
context. People who use sign language, know this very well. ‘Small’ in ‘a small
elephant’ is a different kind of small, than in ‘a small ladybug’. ‘My dog’ can
be a miniature dog or a big great Dane.
Context is
even more important for lipreaders, because so many words look alike, or are
only partially visible. For lipreaders, most of the words they see are ‘fuzzy’
patterns: patterns that do not have a direct link to one single word or meaning
in their brain.
In
lipreading, you will get some of the information from the speaker’s mouth, but the
pattern that you see may activate 2 - 6 words in your brain, or maybe more.
There rarely is a clear 1-1 link to a single word. So you have to use context,
to select the correct alternative. At first, this may require conscious
attention: Did he say ‘ball’? But that doesn’t make sense, so it must have been
‘mall’!
Later, you
will probably be able to choose the correct alternative automatically, because
you will not be lipreading word-by-word anymore, but in larger ‘chunks’. The
words before and after will help your brains decide what the fuzzy bit in the
middle was.
But there’s
more than 1 context! There are (at least!) four:
- Sentence context. "’m tired, I’m going ….". "I want a pizza with ....." If you get the first words of the sentence right, you need very little information from the lips to get the last words too. Sentence context helps – if you know the language, and if the speaker speaks grammatically correct English!
- Topic context. In a conversation
about a football match, you can expect football words. In a talk at a bus-stop
in England, expect weather words. “Third rainy day in a row, isn’t it” Topic
context is partly determined by the situation: shop, bus-stop, office, pub. Especially
with strangers, we use fixed phrases and ‘routines’ in standard situation. Any
real conversation of course is less dependent on context: with friends in a pub,
you may discuss work, relationships, health, football, your new car, or plans
for the weekend. Once you know the topic of the conversation, this will help
you recognize the words. It’s one of the reasons why lipreaders don’t
appreciate speakers who jump from one topic to the next. And why it’s always
good to ask a speaker what he or she is talking about: “I missed that, are you
still talking about Sunday’s match?”
It's also why it's so difficult to lipread a speaker who talks about a topic that you know little about.
Two trickier kinds of
context:
- The speaker’s intentions. This is where mindreading helps. What is he or she trying to tell you, and why? Is it a joke? A warning? Instructions? A question? Body language and facial expression may give you some cues. The better you know the speaker, the easier it will be to guess what’s on someone’s mind, and what you can expect him or her to talk about.
- Your own intentions and expectations. Included in these are all of the 3 contexts above, as well as your emotions, personality, life experience and whatever else you have stored in your brain. If you expect someone to speak English, you will not be able to lipread a speaker of German. If you expect someone to talk about the weather, you may not recognize a question about bus-times. If you expect someone to talk about football, you may miss a message about a missing pet. If you consider yourself a bad lipreader, you may not be able to get a single word no matter how predictable it is. If you are afraid to fail, you may always use your Mona Lisa smile and respond, let alone contradict someone, out of fear that you mis-read what the person said. Or: you will dominate each and every conversation because when you speak, you don’t have to listen!
Context really is a double-edged sword. It can
help, and it can kill. No, not persons, but definitely conversations!
This does explain why good lipreaders are such very
good listeners: they may not actually hear what the other person is saying, but
they will read between the lines,
they will get the underlying message.
Whereas many persons with good hearing may hear all the words, but will interpret
them in the context of their own expectations: they only hear what they want to, or expect to hear.
So yes, always use context. And be aware that
it is is a double-edged sword.
