utterance

...It is said that there are as many definitions of what a sentence is as there are grammarians, and in Japanese linguistics in particular, not only definitions are discussed, but also somewhat philosophical debates that seek to determine what makes a sentence a sentence have traditionally been very active. In recent years, in order to organize the debate, the prevailing view in linguistics is that each individual sound uttered (in the case of spoken language) is not called a sentence, but is called an "utterance," and that a sentence is considered to be an abstract thing that can be imagined behind an utterance. For example, various people may say "This picture is beautiful" in various situations. ...

*Some of the terminology explanations that mention "utterance" are listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…文とは何かについては，文法学者の数だけ定義があるといわれるほどで，とりわけ日本の国語学では，ただ定義を論じるのみならず，文の文たるゆえんを問おうとするようないささか哲学的な論議も従来から盛んに行われてきた。近年の言語学では，論議を整理すべく，(話し言葉の場合)発せられる1回1回の具体的な音声そのものは文と呼ばずにこれを〈発話utterance〉と呼び，発話の背後に想定しうる抽象的なものとして文をとらえる，という考え方が有力である。たとえば，いろいろな人がいろいろな場面で〈この絵はみごとだ。…

※「utterance」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

出典｜株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典 第２版について | 情報