1、.,1,Contact me Yanling Tang,Foreign Studies College Hunan Normal University 36 Lushan Road, Changsha City, Hunan 410081 The Peoples Republic of China(CHINA) CellphoneE-mail: 1596604813,.,2,An Introduction to Pragmatics A Course for B.A. Students Instructor: Prof. Tang Yanling 唐燕玲,.,3,Co

2、ntext,.,4,Outline,1. Warming up,4. The role of context,5. Conclusion,.,5,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. The police were ordered to stop dri

3、nking about midnight. stop people drinking / stop drinking by themselves b. There stood a big stone house at the foot of the hill. a stone house which is big / a house built of big stones,.,6,c. I have lost Bettys picture. a picture possessed by Betty / a photograph of Betty d. Visiting aunts can be

4、 boring. aunts who are visiting / paying a visit to aunts e. Mr. Webster, the amiable priest, is going to marry Jane at the church. take Jane as his wife / preside over Janes wedding,.,7,Part 2: A general description of context,When we think about meaning, it is also important to take into account t

5、he contribution 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（關(guān)于認(rèn)知的） context linguistic context social context,.,8,Physi

6、cal context: 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 speake

7、rs is crucially part of our epistemic knowledge when we have a conversation with someone else.,.,9,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 a

8、s being a top 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.,.,10,Example: Think about the discussion of the library scene in Lang

9、uage Files. Two people 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.,.,11,What do we know pragmatically about your utterance? What con

10、tributes to our understanding 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.,.,12,physical: the conversation occurs in a library epistemic: libraries are quiet places li

11、nguistic: sarcastic tone of 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 orde

12、rs to total strangers.,.,13,Part 3:,A general description of context,.,14,3.1 Bronislaw Kaspar Malinowski s Theory,context,context of culture 文化語(yǔ)境,context of situation 情景語(yǔ)境,.,15,語(yǔ)境的概念是由英國(guó)的波蘭裔人類學(xué)家、功能學(xué)派的創(chuàng)始人之一馬林諾夫斯基(Malinowski,1884-1942) 首先提出的,他把語(yǔ)境分為兩類:即情景語(yǔ)境和文化語(yǔ)境。 context of situation: 情景語(yǔ)境是指語(yǔ)篇產(chǎn)生的環(huán)境；或指

13、言語(yǔ)行為發(fā)生時(shí)的具體情境。 context of culture: 文化語(yǔ)境是指某種語(yǔ)言賴以植根的民族里人們思想和行為準(zhǔn)則的總和?；蛑刚f話人生活于其中的社會(huì)文化背景。,.,16,3.2 John Rupert Firth s theory,Firth(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 g

14、oing on at the moment. His notion of context included “not 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”.,.,17,Firth didnt give a classifica

15、tion to the notion of context. But he further developed Malinnowskis “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 th

16、e status and roles of the participants;,.,18,2) The action of participants: 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 acti

17、on: what changes were brought about by what the participants in the situation had to say.,.,19,3.3 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 situ

18、ation into a specific and detailed one in utterance and text interpretation. In his register theory he described context as field of discourse, tenor of discourse, and mode of discourse.,.,20,The three features of context of situation:,register variables 語(yǔ)域變體,field語(yǔ)場(chǎng),tenor語(yǔ)旨,mode語(yǔ)式,.,21,The field of

19、 discourse refers to what is happening,to the nature of the social action that is taking place.語(yǔ)場(chǎng)指的是正在發(fā)生什么事,所進(jìn)行的社會(huì)活動(dòng)的性質(zhì)、特點(diǎn)、語(yǔ)言所談及或描述的是什么。 The tenor of discourse refers to who is taking part in, to the nature of participants , their status and roles. 語(yǔ)旨指的是誰(shuí)是交際者,他們的基本情況、特點(diǎn)、地位、角色、關(guān)系等。,.,22,The mode of d

20、iscourse refers to what part the language is playing, what it is that the participants expect the language to do for them in the situation. 語(yǔ)式指的是語(yǔ)言在交際中所起的作用,包括交際渠道和修飾方式。,.,23,Halliday claims that field, tenor, and mode of discourse are the three features of the context of situation and these concept

21、s enable us to give a characterization of the nature of any texts.,.,24,3.4 Hu Zhuanglins theory Hu Zhuanglin (1994) classified it into three types, namely linguistic context; situational context and cultural context. linguistic context: the internal environment of a text. situational context: envir

22、onmental factors in which the text is produced, the events and their nature, the participants and their relationship, and when, where, how the text is produced.,.,25,cultural context: the history, culture, customs and folks capable of being understood by speakers belonging to a particular speech com

23、munity. All these definitions, regardless of their differences, basically share some aspects in common that context is context-dependent and language-centered. In other words, it is inter-related and contributes to the understanding of meaning.,.,26,Part4: The role of context,4.1. Elimination of amb

24、iguity Ambiguity often arises due to polysemy and homonymy. When a word with multiple meanings is used in inadequate 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.,.,27,The first sentence is quite ambiguous because w

25、e have no way to determine whether John “participated” in the race or “organized” the race as the word run can mean both. Contrastingly, the second sentence is definite and leaves us no doubt that John took part in the race personally because he got second place.,.,28,Homonymy is another cause of am

26、biguity as two separate lexemes share the same form, e.g. (1) They saw her duck. duckn. “ a kind of poultry” or as a verb meaning “l(fā)ower ones head or body quickly, dodge”. Both fit in the syntactic structure of the sentence .,.,29,(2) The ball was attractive. Similarly, ball may mean a “a round obje

27、ct to play in a game” as well as a “dancing party”. Grammatically, the usage is perfectly all right.,.,30,This ambiguity can only be 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

28、people” in the second case.,.,31,4.2 Indication of referents English has a large number of deictic words such as now/then, here/there, I/you, this/that, which are often used to refer directly to the personal, temporal or locational characteristics of the situation. Without clear context, the referen

29、ce can be very confusing. For example, the word now always means the time of speaking, naturally referring to a past time when the speech took place in the past or a present moment if the addresser is speaking.,.,32,4.3 Provision of clues for inference of word meaning Context clues vary a great deal

30、 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. Perhaps the most startling theory to come out of kinesics, the study of body movement, was suggested by Professor Bird-whistell (American anthropologist).,.,

31、33,2) Explanation If the concept is complicated and must involve technical term in its definition, the author might explain the idea in simple words. 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 o

32、f a computer commonly known as “silicon chips”.,.,34,3) Exemplification 例證 In some cases, instead of giving a formal definition or explanation, the author 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 e

33、xample, speaks five languages.,.,35,4) Synonymy Synonyms or synonymous expressions are frequently employed by authors to explain new words, e.g. (1) Their greatest fear was of a conflagration, since fire would destroy their flimsy wooden settlement before help could arrive. (2) He died intestate. In

34、 the absence of will his property was divided among his heirs according to the laws of the state.,.,36,5) Antonymy Contrasting words or statements are also commonly used to explain unknown words, e.g. (1 ) As the fighting on all fronts reached its peak, the economy neared its nadir. (2 ) Unlike her

35、gregarious sister, Jane is a shy, unsociable person.,.,37,6) Hyponymy Superordinates and subordinates often define and explain each other, thus forming an important context clue, e.g. The village had most of the usual amenities: a pub, a library, a post office, a village hall, a medical centre, and

36、a school. 便利設(shè)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 rest and this is adequate because in real situation often a general idea is sufficient.,.,38,7) Relevant details In some case

37、s, 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 the fishermen were wearing souwesters, the storm was so heavy that they were wet through.,.,39,Finally the morphemic s

38、tructure 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 geocentric theory. If we know the form geo- as in geography as well as the fact that it is in contrast to helio-,

39、 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.,.,40,Part 5: Conclusion,In a narrow sense, context refers to the words, phrases and sentences in which a word is used. This is what is k

40、nown as linguistic context(語(yǔ)言語(yǔ)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(非語(yǔ)言語(yǔ)境).,.,41,Linguistic context,Linguistic context(語(yǔ)言語(yǔ)境) refers to the relevant text or discourse of which a se

41、ntence, 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”.,.,42,As the British linguist Firth concluded:“Each word when used in a new context is a new word. ”(每一個(gè)詞用在新的語(yǔ)境中就是一個(gè)新詞。) 首先,它意味著一個(gè)單詞如果脫離了具體的語(yǔ)境便純粹成了一個(gè)符號(hào),但一旦進(jìn)入語(yǔ)境就獲得了意義。其次,一個(gè)單詞在不同的語(yǔ)境中具有不同的意義,因而完全可以被看作是新詞。,.,43,例如: (1) Like charges repel ,unlike charges attract. 相同的電荷相斥,不同的電