On the Role of Context in Utterance Interpretation30

1、on the role of context in utterance interpretation abstractlanguage is a means of verbal communication. it has long been recognized that language is an essential and important part of a given culture and that the impact of culture upon a given language is something essential and necessary. a human l

2、anguage is a system of remarkable complexity. to come to know a human language would be an extraordinary intellectual achievement. language production is very definitely of a goal-direction activity. in the sense that people speak and write in order to make friends, influence people, convey informat

3、ion, and so on. but any kind of communication all occurs in a certain linguistic environmentcontext. context is a very complicated and various. it plays the key role in the creation of discourse and the utterance interpretation. by means of context, hearers can understand implication, discriminate a

4、mbiguity to get assurance information, inferring common information from unqualified or abnormal sentences from the perspective of semantics, specific and clear information from ambiguous meaning and opposite information to the sentence meaning. also, we can omit and automatically complement sentenc

5、e meaning from context. this paper focus on the role of context in utterance interpretation, it concludes that utterance interpretation actually is a process of context inferences.key words: context； utterance interpretation； role；information.语境在话语理解中的作用摘 要 语言是言语交流的一种方式。人们很早就认识到,语言是一种特定文化中基本和重要的组成部分

6、,语言对文化有着本质的,不可替代的影响。人类的语言是一个极其复杂的系统。了解人类语言是一项伟大的智力成就。人们说话或者写文章是为了交朋友,影响别人,传递信息等等。在这个意义上,语言产生无疑是一种目标驱动的活动。然而任何一种交流均发生在特定的语言环境语境中。语境十分复杂,难以穷尽。语境对于话语的产生和话语意义的理解有着非常关键的作用。体现在:依赖语境可以帮助受话者听出“言外之义” ,辨析歧义获得准确的信息,从语义上不合格或不规范的句子或词语中推断出正常的信息,以模糊的意义推断出具体明确的信息,推断出与句子意义相反的信息,进行省略,自动补充语意等。本文就语境对话语理解中的作用进行讨论,从而得出语境

7、是话语理解的推断过程。关键词:语境；话语理解；作用；信息。contents1. introduction12. the definition of context13. classification of context23.1context of situation 23.2 context of culture34. the functions of context in utterance interpretation54.1the deixis and relevance 54.2 the conversational implicature and illocutionary for

8、ce 65. context and utterance interpretation85.1 the interpretation of vague or the ambiguity utterances85.2the interpretation of the trope utterances85.3the interpretation of the cultural related words and expression utterances96. conclusion10on the role of context in utterance interpretation1. intr

9、oductionlanguage is such an integral part of life and humanity that too much about it has been taken for granted, which always involves such situation factors as time, place, participants, etc. the expression and interpretation of a certain meaning is closely related to these factors .the relationsh

10、ip between the linguistic form and meaning. it is not a one to one relationship. however, changes with time, palace, participants, etc. the change of any one of situation factors may more or less change the meaning the linguistic form expresses. participant in the communication may give rise to disc

11、repancies in utterance interpretation.pragmatics studies the use and understanding of the language. it involves the process of expression meaning by the speakers. context is annexed with language in that language is presented and acquires sense in some context. the social and cultural features of hu

12、man communication process are also one context construction. context is the situation of speech in which people conduct speech intercourse. in specific context, context can restrict and explain the utterance interpretation. also context can infer the implication and complement of the utterance meani

13、ng which is omitted. many times, people are different in period context, educational, level, culture and social customs. this often makes them misunderstand and deviate the utterance interpretation.jacobson defined the six primary factors of any speech events, namely: speaker, addressee, context, me

14、ssage, code, contact. what we can learn from is the context is playing an important role in our daily communication. its each factor may effect on the both sides of the expression and the utterance. utterance interpretation is a complex cognition psychology processing. whether in the communication b

15、etween the two englishmen or the crosscultural communication should be in a context. with the aid of context in each factor, through the context inference, we may understand the speaker the way of expression and the strategies of application. so actually, utterance interpretation is a processing abo

16、ut the context, and utterance interpretation is the foundation and the precondition. so on the effective context activity to be extremely important.2. the definition of context according to the websters new world dictionary of the american language, context means “the parts of a sentence, paragraph,

17、 discourse etc, immediately next to or surrounding a specified word or passage and determing its exact meaning.” it also refers to “the whole situation, background. or environment relevant to a particular event, personality, creation ect.” there are the dictionary meanings of context, and based on t

18、hem, people develop their own definition of context.context, simply speaking, is the surroundings where an utterance is. it plays an important role in the process of utterance interpretation. its function can be classified into the explaining function and the restrictive function. the explaining fun

19、ction refers to the fact that context may explain the utterance interpretation.pragmatics is the study of meaning in context. it deals with particular utterances in particular situations and is especially concerned with the various ways in which the many social contexts of language performance can i

20、nfluence interpretation. in other words, pragmatics is concerned with the way language is used to communicate rather than with the way language is structure.utterance serves as a context, affecting sentence and wordlevel interpretation, giving the interpretation of what would otherwise be ambiguous

21、words or phrases in a certain direction. for example, some sentences can be interpreted literally (according to standard usages of the words) or figurative (by deviating from what we understand to be the standard significance of the words for some special meaning or effect).context can prompt reader

22、s to engage in one or the other.when we are trying to understand a sentence, we often make use of information that is not contained directly within the sentence itself. context is the environment, which the utterance rely on. in china, many linguistics thought that: the context is the time, the plac

23、e, the situation, the object and so on. the objective factors constitution used context. we used the language, also carries on the utterance communication, activity, always at least have the two participates to take part in. and carries on inventory in a certain context. on the processing of the utt

24、erance communication, speaker and hearer are not negatively, or simply act as the utterance information receiver. they often used the clues, which the context provides to the utterance understanding and to the utterance interpretation. the utterance understanding cannon leave the context, and in a c

25、ertain context utterance is receive by the restriction of context.3. classification of contextthe concept “context” was first put forward in 1923 by bronislaw malinlwski, an english professor of anthropology. he distinguished between context of culture and context of situation.3.1 context of situati

26、on according to halliday, the context of situation consists of three components: scene, manner, and communicator. these elements interact with each other and limit the choice of forms.most of us take it for granted that understanding an utterance interpretation the comprehension of the total meaning

27、 conveyed by the speaker. as a matter of fact, it usually turns out that it is far from enough for us to understand and interpret the meaning fully and correctly. an english word usually has more than one meaning due to change and development of society, science and technology. it is not possible fo

28、r us to have a clear and correct comprehension, if we understand the words isolate. the same sentence used in different time, place, under different situation, might have different effects on peoples comprehension. therefore, we need to attain some relevant knowledge and understand it according to t

29、he context. meaning is determined by the context. it is more likely that people will have a misunderstanding and misinterpretation without the help of the context.due to the change of situation, peoples choices of words are also various, under set situation, people use set words to present their ide

30、as. this includes two aspects: formal and informal. we could not say “hi” when we first meet somebody because it would be regarded as impolite. if we use informal expression, informal situation. it is not well matched.we have the conversation depends on different situation rely on the time, place, r

31、eason, and occupations gender.the language is used by the individual in the real life scene has various scene in the daily life. therefore in the expression process. we have to clarity is: “who speaks to who? at what kind of time, what type speed did? what kind of situation speaks? why did they say

32、like this? ” in ordinary circumstances, when we have different opinions with each other, to the elder we could say: “i am not sure if id agree with you.” to the colleague we could say: “i cannot agree with you or i could not go along with you.” to good friend we could say: “i totally disagree.”in di

33、fferent occupation in different occasion, the language used is different. a boy at home must call his mother (who is a teacher): mum, but at school, he must call: mrs. so we must make it clear: “who speaks what to whom when where and why?” sometimes people use very informal words, such as slag in th

34、eir familiarly with each other. so when people meet one says: “you old son of bitch.”this is just a way of their greeting with one other. if we do not know the situation clear, we might think that one people is insulting the other and there is a great possibility of their fighting with each other.ev

35、erything happens under certain situation. every utterance should be understood in accordance with the situation.3.2 context of culture in malinowskis opinion, the context of culture refers to the social and cultural background which language forms can depends on language is the carrier of culture, a

36、s well as a part of culture. they are interrelated and independent. malinowski argues that “one language must be deeprooted in a given culture, conversely, the social culture is unavoidably reflected by context.” in a given context of culture, when people use language to communicate with each other,

37、 they must follow certain conventional rules for social communication. a simple illustration may make the point clear. in this century, more and more scholars are beginning to extend the meaning of context to a large scale, which he made many remarkable contributions. there has been a maxim in socio

38、linguistics, which claims, “you are silly”. “what do you say?”(lukoff 1991). following this claim, we may expand the scope of our observation by introducing some social factors that are believed to influence our language behavior in a social context. among these factors, some major ones included 1)

39、culture background 2) custom 3) class 4) gender 5) age 6) ethnic identity 7) education background 8) occupation 9) religious belief. here we have this phrase: “out in the west where men are men.” if we do not notice these words : “in the west ”we will not be able to know that the second “men” refers

40、 to “cowboys” who are a sort of men working or horse back , employed to look after cattle in the western part of the united states. it covers much more in our total understanding of the utterance interpretation .relevance knowledge of the culture of the country will give us more help. when an englis

41、h native speaker comes to china. he often hears other people saying: “have you eve eaten?” what does that mean? the foreigner feels totally at a loss. does he want to invite me to a dinner or does he want me to help him do anything? if he goes deep into chinese culture, he would find that it is a ve

42、ry normal way for chinese people who meet each other and greet in such a way “have you ever eaten?” this is a good example of the importance of the relevant knowledge of culture .another example: a chinese man and his wife are in the foreign country, its polite for a gentleman to praise the lady, so

43、 the foreigner said:“oh, mr. li, your wife is very beautiful.” the chinese man thought a while and answer to other peoples praise:“no, no.” the foreigner got confused, seldom have people answered we always hears is “thank you.” it seems to be humorous, but when we go deep into the reason why such th

44、ings happen, we come to the context. it reflects the importance of the relevant knowledge of culture. according to what is said, the utterance interpretation is very well understood but the meaning the people intend to convey is totally lost (we know the literal meaning, but we dont know the deeper

45、meaning behind the words). this needs us to help of context of culture. people live in a certain kind of cultural atmosphere. thus, it is important to have some idea about the ideological aspect of human beings culture. if learners have no knowledge about the cultural components of a given language

46、carries, he/she would not be able to adjust the language forms according to the context of situation, even less likely t to master the language, let alone to apply the language in an appropriate way.4. the functions of context in utterance interpretation4.1the deixis and relevance utterance serves a

47、s a context, affecting sentences and word-level interpretation tipping the interpretation of what would otherwise be ambiguous words or phrase in a certain direction. utterance may be defined as a piece of actually used language. in pragmatics: an outline of introduction of he ziran he points out: d

48、eixis plays a key role in the application of language, its meaning is comminuted with the context could get the correct meaning. deixis include: person deixis, space deixis, time deixis, discourse deixis, social deixis. levinson points out: “language structure reflects the relation between the langu

49、age and context, the most obvious is: deixis phenomenon, that is to say, deixis is the strongest factor to rely on its context.” without context, deixis will become ambiguity, and there will be no utterance activities, for example:1) ill be back in two hours.2) give me this one, not that one. in 1)t

50、he time deixis is not clear, if after the “in two hours” there is no important information to tell the accurate time in the message. we do not know what will happen. and in 2), if we are in a store, only after the speaker when he said this sentence and used the non-linguistic contextgestures could w

51、e know what “this” and what “that” is. so we must the context.deixis is speaker related. it can easily be used to indicate particular, and changing, viewpoint. lacking of context, we do not know what the sentences means, so we must use the context.the principle of relevance: every act of ostensive c

52、ommunication communicates the presumption of its own optimal relevance.from the speakers side communication should be seen as an act of making clear speakers side, communication should be seen as an act of making clear ones intention to express something. this act they call ostensive act. and deixis

53、 is the ostensive act, but grice points out: communication is not simply a matter of encoding and decoding, it also involves inference. so the relevance functions in the context are important.sperber and wilson agreed with grice that communication is not simply a matter of encoding and decoding, is

54、also involves inference. however, they maintain that inference has only to do with the hearer. from the speakers side, communication should be seen as an act of making clear ones intention that inference has only to do with the hearer.it is not that there is a context, on which the relevance of an a

55、ssumption depends, what is given is relevance. people generally assume that the assumption they are processing is relevant (otherwise they would not bother to process it), then try to find a context in which its relevance will be maximized.this theory was formally proposed by dan sperber and deirdre

56、 wilson in their book relevance communication and cognition in 1986.in the utterance meaning they have explicator and implicature, but to understand the both sides implicature , implicature is the contextual implicate which states clearly infers results in the information intention which the speaker

57、 must transmit it ,moreover must cause to be obedient the hearer to understand themselves .ex: john: i am tired.” tina: if you are tired, ill make the meal.”in here, in the context in advance the implicative is related to tina. because john expressed the supposition, which the context depends on tin

58、a will make the meal.4.2 the conversational implicature and illocutionary forcesome sentences can be interpreted literally (according to understand usage of the words) or figuratively (by deviating from what we understand to be the standard significant of the words from some special meaning or effect).context can prompt readers to engage in one or the other. grice notices that in daily conversations people do not usually say things directly but tend to imply them.the people manage to convey implicature, do not normally consist of a successi