Context 英语语用学

1、Contact meYanling Tang Foreign Studies College Hunan Normal University 36 Lushan Road, Changsha City, Hunan 410081 The Peoples Republic of China(CHINA) CellphoneE-mail: An Introduction to Pragmatics A Course for B.A. Students Instructor: Prof. ContextOutline 3. Theories of context1. War

2、ming up 4. The role of context 2. A general description of Context5. Conclusion Part 1: Warming up Can you explain the meaning of the words in italics in each of the sentences below? Explain why and then make some alterations in the context so as to pin down the meaning.a.The police were ordered to

3、stop drinking about midnight. stop people drinking / stop drinking by themselvesb. There stood a big stone house at the foot of the hill. a stone house which is big / a house built of big stonesc. I have lost Bettys picture. a picture possessed by Betty / a photograph of Bettyd. Visiting aunts can b

4、e boring. aunts who are visiting / paying a visit to auntse. Mr. Webster, the amiable priest, is going to marry Jane at the church. take Jane as his wife / preside over Janes weddingPart 2: A general description of context When we think about meaning, it is also important to take into account the co

5、ntribution of context. In simple terms, then, we can think about pragmatics as the study of the contribution of context to meaning. Here are four sub-areas involved in fleshing out (完善）what we mean by context. physical context Epistemic（关于认知的） context linguistic context social context Physical conte

6、xt: we can think of this in terms of where the conversation is taking place, what objects are present, what actions are occurring, and so forth. Epistemic context: the epistemic context refers to what speakers know about the world. For example, what background knowledge shared by the speakers is cru

7、cially part of our epistemic knowledge when we have a conversation with someone else. Linguistic context: the linguistic context refers to what has been said already in the utterance. For example, if I begin a discussion by referring to Jane Smith and in the next sentence refer to her as being a top

8、 notch athlete, the linguistic context lets me know that the antecedent of her (the person her refers to) is Jane Smith. Social context: the social context refers to the social relationship among speakers and hearers. Example: Think about the discussion of the library scene in Language Files. Two pe

9、ople come into a library and they are talking really loud. They sit at your table and continue their babbling. So, you look up at them and say: Excuse me, could you please speak up a bit more? I missed what you said. What do we know pragmatically about your utterance? What contributes to our underst

10、anding of why its literal meaning (i.e. please speak up) departs so much from what its intended meaning is (i.e. shut up!)? Consider some of the contextual properties of the utterance. physical: the conversation occurs in a library epistemic: libraries are quiet places linguistic: sarcastic tone of

11、voice (intonation cues are linguistic) social context: you have the right to ask someone to be quiet in a place where people are supposed to be quiet, especially if their rule-breaking is injurious to the needs of others, which overrides the social norm of not giving orders to total strangers. Part

12、3:A general description of context 3.1 Bronislaw Kaspar Malinowski s Theorycontextcontext of culture文化语境context of situation情景语境 语境的概念是由英国的波兰裔人类学家、功能学派的创始人之一马林诺夫斯基(Malinowski,1884-1942) 首先提出的,他把语境分为两类:即情景语境和文化语境。 context of situation: 情景语境是指语篇产生的环境；或指言语行为发生时的具体情境。 context of culture: 文化语境是指某种语言赖以植根的

13、民族里人们思想和行为准则的总和。或指说话人生活于其中的社会文化背景。3.2 John Rupert Firth s theoryFirth(1957) defined context of situation as the entire cultural setting of speech and the personal history of the participants rather than as simply the context of human activity going on at the moment. His notion of context included “n

14、ot only spoken words, but facial expression, gestures, bodily activities, the whole group of people present during an exchange of utterances, and the part of the environment in which these people are engaged”. Firth didnt give a classification to the notion of context. But he further developed Malin

15、nowskis “context of situation”. Therefore he categorized context of situation as: 1) The participants in the situation: what Firth referred to as persons and personalities, corresponding more or less to what sociologists would regard as the status and roles of the participants; 2) The action of part

16、icipants: what they are doing, including both their verbal action and their non-verbal action.3) Other relevant features of the situation: the relevant objects and non-verbal and non-personal events.4) The effects of the verbal action: what changes were brought about by what the participants in the

17、situation had to say. 3.3 M. A. K. Hallidays theory Just as Malinowski had influenced Firth, the latter, in return, had great impact on another famous linguist, M. A. K. Halliday (Halliday, 1985) deepened Firths context of situation into a specific and detailed one in utterance and text interpretati

18、on. In his register theory he described context as field of discourse, tenor of discourse, and mode of discourse. The three features of context of situation:register variables语域变体field语场tenor语旨mode语式 The field of discourse refers to what is happening,to the nature of the social action that is taking

19、 place.语场指的是正在发生什么事,所进行的社会活动的性质、特点、语言所谈及或描述的是什么。 The tenor of discourse refers to who is taking part in, to the nature of participants , their status and roles. 语旨指的是谁是交际者,他们的基本情况、特点、地位、角色、关系等。 The mode of discourse refers to what part the language is playing, what it is that the participants expect

20、 the language to do for them in the situation. 语式指的是语言在交际中所起的作用,包括交际渠道和修饰方式。 Halliday claims that field, tenor, and mode of discourse are the three features of the context of situation and these concepts enable us to give a characterization of the nature of any texts. 3.4 Hu Zhuanglins theoryHu Zhua

21、nglin (1994) classified it into three types, namely linguistic context; situational context and cultural context. 1) linguistic context: the internal environment of a text.2) situational context: environmental factors in which the text is produced, the events and their nature, the participants and t

22、heir relationship, and when, where, how the text is produced. cultural context: the history, culture, customs and folks capable of being understood by speakers belonging to a particular speech community. All these definitions, regardless of their differences, basically share some aspects in common t

23、hat context is context-dependent and language-centered. In other words, it is inter-related and contributes to the understanding of meaning.Part4: The role of context 4.1. Elimination of ambiguity Ambiguity often arises due to polysemy and homonymy. When a word with multiple meanings is used in inad

24、equate context, it creates ambiguity, e.g.(1) John ran the egg-and-spoon race.(2) John ran the egg-and-spoon race and got second place. The first sentence is quite ambiguous because we have no way to determine whether John “participated” in the race or “organized” the race as the word run can mean b

25、oth. Contrastingly, the second sentence is definite and leaves us no doubt that John took part in the race personally because he got second place. Homonymy is another cause of ambiguity as two separate lexemes share the same form, e.g. (1) They saw her duck. duckn. “ a kind of poultry” or as a verb

26、meaning “lower ones head or body quickly, dodge”. Both fit in the syntactic structure of the sentence . (2) The ball was attractive. Similarly, ball may mean a “a round object to play in a game” as well as a “dancing party”. Grammatically, the usage is perfectly all right. This ambiguity can only be

27、 eliminated by altering the context a little as “They saw her duck swimming in the river” in the first case or as “The ball was attractive with nice music and a lot of people” in the second case. 4.2 Indication of referents English has a large number of deictic words such as now/then, here/there, I/

28、you, this/that, which are often used to refer directly to the personal, temporal or locational characteristics of the situation. Without clear context, the reference can be very confusing. For example, the word now always means the time of speaking, naturally referring to a past time when the speech

29、 took place in the past or a present moment if the addresser is speaking. 4.3 Provision of clues for inference of word meaning Context clues vary a great deal but can be summed up as follows:1) Definition Often we may find that the author gives formal definition immediately after the new term, e.g.

30、Perhaps the most startling theory to come out of kinesics, the study of body movement, was suggested by Professor Bird-whistell (American anthropologist).2) Explanation If the concept is complicated and must involve technical term in its definition, the author might explain the idea in simple words.

31、 That is, he might make a restatement in known words, e.g. Its just one more incredible result of the development of microprocessors those tiny parts of a computer commonly known as “silicon chips”.3) Exemplification 例证例证 In some cases, instead of giving a formal definition or explanation, the autho

32、r may cite an example which is sufficient to throw light on the meaning of the term, e.g.Many United Nations employees are polyglots. Maria, for example, speaks five languages.4) SynonymySynonyms or synonymous expressions are frequently employed by authors to explain new words, e.g. (1) Their greate

33、st fear was of a conflagration, since fire would destroy their flimsy wooden settlement before help could arrive. (2) He died intestate. In the absence of will his property was divided among his heirs according to the laws of the state.5) Antonymy Contrasting words or statements are also commonly us

34、ed to explain unknown words, e.g. (1 ) As the fighting on all fronts reached its peak, the economy neared its nadir. (2 ) Unlike her gregarious sister, Jane is a shy, unsociable person.6) HyponymySuperordinates and subordinates often define and explain each other, thus forming an important context c

35、lue, e.g.The village had most of the usual amenities: a pub, a library, a post office, a village hall, a medical centre, and a school.便利设施Of course, only by co-hyponyms (e.g. pub, library, school), we may not get the exact meaning, but we know at least that they belong to the same category as the re

36、st and this is adequate because in real situation often a general idea is sufficient.7) Relevant detailsIn some cases, the author provides details in context which are related to the unknown word, such as the functions, characteristics, nature, etc. of the referent, e.g. In spite of the fact that th

37、e fishermen were wearing souwesters, the storm was so heavy that they were wet through. Finally the morphemic structure of words, especially compounds and derived words offers clues for inferring the meaning of unknown words, e.g. Copernicus believed in a heliocentric universe, rather than in the ge

38、ocentric theory. If we know the form geo- as in geography as well as the fact that it is in contrast to helio-, we should not have much difficulty in guessing the meanings of heliocentric and geocentric with the help of our historical knowledge of what Copernicus advocated.Part 5: Conclusion In a na

39、rrow sense, context refers to the words, phrases and sentences in which a word is used. This is what is known as linguistic context(语言语境), which may be a paragraph, a whole chapter and even an entire book. And the physical, social and cultural setting, etc. are known as non-linguistic context(非语言语境)

40、. Linguistic context Linguistic context(语言语境) refers to the relevant text or discourse of which a sentence, a phrase, a word etc. is part or whatever longer text is relevant to same specific inquiry. Hatim and Mason (2001:204) define linguistic context as “the textual environment of a linguistic item”. As the British linguist Firth concluded:“Each word when used in a new context is a new word. ”(每一个词用在新的语境中就是一个新词。) 首先,它意味着一个单词如果脱离了具体的语境便纯粹成了一个符号,但一旦进入语境就获得了意义。其次,一个单词在不同的语境中具有不同的意义,因而完全可以被看作是新词。 例如: (1) Like charges repel ,unlike charges attract. 相同的电荷相斥,不同的电荷相吸. (2) He likes math