语境与词汇意义的关系

Linguistic Context and Meaning

Context and Linguistic Context

According to the Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (2000),

context is that which occurs before and/or after a word, a phrase or even a longer UTTERANCE

or a TEXT. The context often helps in understanding the particular meaning of the word, phrase,

etc. For example, the word loud in loud music is understood as meaning “unpleasantly colorful”.

The context may also be the broader social situation in which a linguistic item is used. For

example, in ordinary usage, spinster refers to an older unmarried woman but in a legal context it

refers to any unmarried woman.

Generally speaking, as Dilly mentions context refers to “the parts which immediately precede or

follo w a particular passage or text and determine its meaning” (Dilly, 2002:442). And the

figurative uses refer to a type of connection or relationship of a general kind as in “the

circumstances relevant to something under consideration”.

Linguists have classified context from different perspectives and for different aims. For

example, context may be classified into broad and narrow ones according to their scopes; notional

and situational ones according to their content; emotional and rational ones according to their

emotions; implicit and explicit ones according to expressing forms, etc. However, the most widely

used way is to draw a distinction between two major types:linguistic context and non-linguistic

context, which can be illustrated as the above.

As linguistic context is a part of context, next we will first discuss about context from different

perspectives.

He Ziran (1997: 209) states that linguistic context refers to the co-text, it refers to the word

groups, the clauses and the sentences in which a language unit appears and it may also cover a

paragraph, a whole chapter and even the entire book. Brown and Y ule (1983) conclude that the

context of a language unit not only can be the discourse where the language unit is in but also can

be another discourse relevant to the language unit. According to Verschueren (2000: 104), there

are three features of linguistic context: they are contextual cohesion, intertextuality and

Context

Linguistic context Non-linguistic context Phonological context

Lexical context

Grammatical context Textual context

Context of Situation Context of Culture

sequencing. The label cohesion is generally used to distinguish the overt marking of relations within a discourse or text, which is then often called the co-text of the discourse or text fragment under consideration.

The markers of cohesion are conjunctions, anaphora, exemplification, highlighting, contrasting, comparison, repetition, substitution, etc. The second feature is intertextuality. When a referring item refers to entities in the background knowledge, whether culture of interpersonal, that have obviously been mentioned in a previous conversation or text, or have occurred in a previously shared situation or activity, this is intertextuality. (de Beaugrand and Dressler, 1981) The last one is sequencing, it refers to the discourse that reflects the world of several dimensions, but that doesn?t mean the discou rse structure equals the world structure, as world is a crossing object, discourse is sequencing. (Xiong Xueliang, 1995)

◆Linguistic Context and Its Effect on Word Meaning

Next we approach linguistic context from four aspects: phonological context, lexical context, grammatical context, and textual context. Each aspect of the context has its own contributions to the clarification of word meanings, which will be discussed in details in this section.

◆Phonological Context and Word Meaning

Phonological context refers to intonation, stress, pause, etc. which influence the meaning of words, sentences and even a whole utterance.

The main function of intonation is to express a speaker?s feelings, attitudes, and intentions. For example, the rising tone indicates a question while a falling tone indicates a statement. However, language use is more complex than that. Consider the following conversation: In an American class, the teacher asks a black boy to answer a question. The following is their dialogue.

Teacher: James, what does this word say?

James: (in rising tone) I don?t know.

Teacher: Well, if you don?t want to try, someone else will. Freddy? (Gumperz, 2001:192)

In the above conversation, the black boy wants the teacher?s encouragement by using the rising tone, but the teacher doesn?t know in Black English the rising tone of “I don?t know” means “I need encouragement”, so the teacher misunderstands the boy?s answer. Because of the tone, the meanings of words changes, thus influences the understanding of the utterance.

Stress includes word stress and sentence stress. A word may have different meanings when the stress is put on different syllables, a sentence may also have different meaning while the stress is put on different words. For example, the phrase a sick nurse, if both sick and nurse are stressed, it means a nurse who is sick, but if only sick is stressed, it implies a nurse who looks after a sick. Pause means a short interval within a discourse. It consists of emotive pau ses like …er? and …mm?, and structural pauses, which are dependent on sentence structure.

The phonological contexts are important in conversations, as they can influence the meanings of words and sentences, and even the whole utterance in an oral communication. However, it is less important in the function of determining word meanings in a written discourse.

◆Lexical Context and Word Meaning

Lexical context refers to the lexical items combined with a given word, phrase, etc. According to Zhang Feiwen (1988:234), lexical context refers to the lexical items combined with a given polysemous words. There are many polysemous words in English.

According to the Oxford Advanced Learner?s English-Chinese Dictionary (1997), the word get has more than 150 meanings. A word may appear to have different meanings when collocated with

different words. For instance, the word high have different meanings while combined with different words:

(1) high road (main road)

(2) high tide (time when this occurs)

(3) high spot (outstanding event, memory, etc.)

(4) high summer (the middle of the summer)

(Oxford Advanced Learner?s English-Chinese Dictionary,1997: 700)

Take the word paper for another example, the word paper has a number of meanings

in the dictionary, while in the following sentences, it conveys only one sense.

(1)a sheet of paper (thin flat sheets of substance for writing, printing,decoration wall, etc.)

(2) a white paper (government document)

(3) a term paper (essay written at the end of the term)

(4) today?s paper (newspaper)

(5) examination paper (a set of questions used as an examination)(Zhang Weiyou,1997: 164) Another function of lexical context is to distinguish synonyms. Many English words are explained by their synonyms in the dictionary. Sometimes a word in a group of synonyms can take the place of another. However, they usually can not exchange with each other in certain contexts. For example, in the text Life of a Salesman, chosen from book three of College English, Bill Porter is a character in the story who is satirized and laughed at because of his disability. The author describes him by the sentence “he leads a solitary life”. The word solitary which appropriately expresses the personality of Bill Porter means the sense of being by oneself by lack of companionship or association. While the word lonely can be the synonym of solitary, it means a state of mind, from mild sadness to great depression, which is induced by lack of companionship. But if the sentence is cha nged into “he leads a lonely life”, the meaning of what the author wants to express will greatly change. The word solitary in this sentence emphasizes that Bill Porter separates himself from others subjectively, he avoids communicating with others and lives himself, but the word lonely can not show the aspect of subjectivity.

From the above mentioned, lexical context has the functions of distinguishing synonyms, determining the meanings of polysemous words and helping to select proper words.

Grammatical Context and Word Meaning

In some cases, the meanings of a word may be influenced by the structure in which it occurs. This is called grammatical context (Zhang Weiyou, 1997:164).

In English, some words are restricted by the regular grammatical structures. For example, intransitive verbs can only be used in the structure SV, and they can not be used in passive voice; however, transitive verbs can be used in the structure SVO, SVOO and SVOC, and they can be used in the passive voice. In addition, a word has different functions and meanings with different part of speech in different contexts. Take the word run as an example:

(1) He has no idea of how to run a successful business.

(2) I feel I?ve had an excellent run for my money and now I?m happy to retire

In sentence (1), the word run is used as a verb, meaning be in charge of . But in sentence (2), the word run is used as a noun, meaning a rewarding career. Here the function of the word run in the two sentences are different, as well as the part of speech, so the meanings are quite different. Some polysemous words may have different meanings in different grammatical context. For example, the meaning of the word get varies in different syntactical structures:

(1) get + noun e.g. We shall get a lot of presents today. (to receive)

(2) get + adjective e.g. The day is getting cold. (to become)

(3) get + noun + adjective e.g. He got his feet wet. (to bring to a certain condition; cause to be or become)

(4) get + infinitive e.g. If I get to see him, I will tell him about it. (to succeed in doing something)

(5) get + noun + infinitive e.g. I will get him to see a doctor. (to cause to do something) Such meanings are sometimes viewed as grammatically or syntactically bound meanings. However, the grammatical context alone is not sufficient to indicate various meanings of a polysemous word. For example, the sentences below belong to the structure get + noun, but the meanings of get are not the same in each sentence.

(1) We shall get a lot of presents today.

(2) He got a bad cold.

(3) I got breakfast in town.

(4) Do you get this question?

(5) Did you get the look on his face?

These sentences show that the exact meaning of get can be understood unless we know the lexical unit with which get is combined. Therefore, the above examples indicate that the meaning of a word often has to be determined by the lexical and the grammatical contexts combined.

The above statements show that grammatical context has the functions of embodying the use of words, and determining the meanings of polysemous words.

Textual Context and Word Meaning

Textual context refers to the clues in a discourse larger than a single utterance. Sometimes the meaning of a word can not be interpreted just by means of lexical context or grammatical context. So it is necessary to extend to groups of sentences, paragraph, or even the discourse. Some factors can influence the interpretation of the word meanings in a textual context, such as code and style in a discourse, the topic of a discourse, etc.

Code is any distinguishable variant of a language, involving systematic sets of choices, whether linked to specific geographical area, a social class, an assignment of functions, or a specific context of uses. (Verschueren, 2000: 118) The range of codes for any given language spoken in a sizeable community is virtually infinite, and there is often a standard dialect, regional dialect, and even idiolect. There are sometimes group-specific languages, either for the initiated few, such as argors or slangs or for larger segments of a population, such as women’s language as opposed to men’s language. There are domain-specific or activity-specific jargons or registers, ranging from literary language to legalese, journalese, political language, scientific language, medical language, the language of advertising, etc. The code of a discourse is an important contextual factor that may itself convey some information and influence the meaning of words in a certain discourse. Style is another significant factor in verbal communication. Style is a very big topic, but it is reserved to describe the variability along dimensions of formality and informality, from casual or colloquial speech to highly formal uses. (Verschueren, 2000: 119) Style differences are primarily differences related to the degree of formality in a situation. This contextual factor sometimes influences the interpretation of a discourse. For example, a discourse in formal style is usually more difficult to be interpreted than that in casual style is. The topic is also an important contextual factor that influences the interpretation of a discourse. The topic of a discourse helps readers to understand

the discourse easier and the meanings of words can be interpreted more accurately. Textual contexts also have great effect on word meanings. For example:

(1) My wife and I moved because as the kids kept getting bigger and bigger, the house kept getting smaller and smaller. It seemed the kids were eating the house. Moving seemed the wise thing to do even though, in the end, we decided to take the kids with us.(eating the house here means making the house appear smaller)

Without the contextual clues, the word eat may not be understood correctly. Sometimes in order to avoid repetition in conversations and in passages, people would like to use the words such as he, they, this, that, then, etc. to refer to the personal, temporal or locational characteristics of the situation. Without the clear context, the referents can not be understood. For example:

A. He is a hard student.

B. The fish is ready to eat.

The word hard in sentence (3)A may mean hard working or difficult to get along, the sentence can be understood in two ways, so without the certain context, no one knows the exact meaning of the word in the sentence. However, sentence (3)B also has two ways of interpretation: the fish is cooked or served for people to eat; or the fish is ready to eat things for its food. Here without contextual clues, the sentence may be misunderstood.

So a function of textual context is to provide the clues for the inference of word meanings, indicate the referents and eliminate ambiguities.

In a word, the understanding of word meaning can not be separated from linguistic context, linguistic context have great effect on word meaning. The next chapter is about a research on students? application of this viewpoint.

As the above has shown , the meanings of words, to a large extent, depend on the certain linguistic contexts, and the linguistic contexts may also influence the use of words. It can be concluded that the employment of linguistic context will make it easier to learn vocabularies and understand the meanings of words.