Context-sensitive expressions appear ill suited to the purpose of sharing content across contexts. Yet we regularly use them to that end (in regulations, textbooks, memos, guidelines, laws, minutes, etc.). This paper describes the utility of the concept of a metacontext for understanding cross-contextual content-sharing with context-sensitive expressions. A metacontext is the context of a group of contexts: an infrastructure that can channel non-linguistic incentives on content ascription so as to homogenize the content ascribed to context-sensitive expressions in each context in the group. Documents composed of context-sensitive expressions can share content across contexts when supported by an appropriate metacontext. The bible has its church, the textbook its education system, the form its bureaucracy, and the manifesto its social movement. Some metacontexts support cross-contextual content-sharing. Some don’t. A promising research programme (one with practical importance) would take metacontexts as its unit of analysis.

中文翻译：

---

元上下文和跨上下文通信：跨上下文稳定文档内容

上下文相关的表达式似乎不适合跨上下文共享内容的目的。然而，我们经常为此目的使用它们（在法规、教科书、备忘录、指南、法律、会议记录等中）。本文描述了元上下文概念在理解上下文敏感表达的跨上下文内容共享方面的实用性。元上下文是一组上下文的上下文：一种基础设施，可以在内容归属上引导非语言激励，以便将归属于该组中每个上下文中的上下文敏感表达的内容同质化。当适当的元上下文支持时，由上下文相关表达式组成的文档可以跨上下文共享内容。圣经有教会，教科书有教育制度，形式有官僚制度，宣言有社会运动。一些元上下文支持跨上下文内容共享。有些则不然。一项有前途的研究计划（具有实际意义的研究计划）将采用元上下文作为其分析单位。