范文及封面附件.doc

1. troduction of Context1.1 The Definition ofln contextContext is defined as a unity of shared knowledge which affects a certain linguistic event in linguistic communicationLongman Dictionary in Linguistics defines it as message existing before and after the word, phrase, utterance, and text under discussion; it is helpful to the understanding of the specific meaning of the word, phrase, utterance, and text.Contexts are alignments of reality along five different axes: linguistic, situational, interactional, cultural, and intertextual. Because language is at the intersection of the individual and the social, it both reflects and construes the social reality called'context\Context is the matrix created by language as discourse and as a form of social practice.Context should be viewed not as a natural given, but as a social construct, the product of linguistic choices made by two or more individuals interacting through language. Broadly, the term "context” refers to all the different situations involved in language communication.Context consists of any elements invoked by any participants, and consequently'participants^ conceptions of each others mental contexts may be wrong or, more likely, only partially right ... any physical set of circumstances could lend itself to an infinity of possible shared conceptions and relevance・Context is not simply referred to the preceding linguistic text, or the environment in which the utterance takes place, but the set of assumptions brought to bear at the intended interpretation.Context connects with one of the key problems in interpretation: recognizing the cultural relationships between what is referred to, as well as the linguistic relationships between elements in the linguistic system・L2 History of studies on contextFor the past thirty years at least, applied linguistic and teachers of English have talked about the importance of "understanding language in context". It is often unclear what is meant by "context". In the 1960s, the fashion was to construct taxonomies of external features of context (such as speaker, hearer, place and time of utterance, genre, etc). More recently applied linguists have turned to the later theories which have attempted to show how features contribute to understanding language. As far as the importance of context in actual language use is concerned, London School initially made an exposition that language activities of human beings are composed of substance (i.e. sounds and written language signs), form (i.e. meaningful structure constituted of sounds and written language signs), and situation (i.e. various elements outside language activities), from which we get it clear that the meaning of language depends not only on lexicon and grammar but on certain language environment.Firth, suggests that context contains not only linguistic co-text but also context of situation. He was the first to include in the context 'not only spoken words, but facial expression, gestures, bodily activities, the whole group of people present during exchange of utterances and the part of the environment in which these people are engaged, and to call the totality of these factors "context of situation5. Generally, Firth defines context of situation as including 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. In detail, it first included the event, the participants as well as the interrelationship between them, but later he also added the factors in economics, religion, social structure, utterance type and function, etc. It could now include participants in speech events, the action taking place, other relevant features of the situation and the effects of the verbal action. These variables are amenable to linguistic analysis and are therefore useful in making statements about meaning. The situational approach requires that we analyze the typical speech situations as follows:1. Interior relations of the text itselfSyntagmatic relations between elements of structure considered at the various levels of analysis;Paradigmatic relations of terms or units that commute within systems to give values to the elements of structure.2. Interior relations within the context of situation(a) The text in relation to the nonverbal constitutes, with its total effective or creative result;(b) Analytic relations between "bits，' and “pieces，，of the text (words, parts of words, phrases) and special constituents within the situation (items, objects, persons, personalities, events).1.3 Function of ContextJapanese scholar XiZhenguangzheng points out in his article Context and Language Study that context has eight functions, i.e. Absolute function, restrictive function, interpretative function, design function, filtering and supplemen tary function, generative function, transformative function and acquisitive function. As a matter of fact, the。