session_12__meaning_and_context专用课件.pptVIP

Session 12 Meaning and Context Content Warming-up Relationship between meaning and context Two types of contexts Three functions of context Clues for inference of meaning Warming-up! What is the meaning of the following sentence? This is a difficult operation. The doctor will perform an operation on her for a diseased lung. The skillful operation of this machine is hard to learn. The army’s operation in that country were very successful. Meaning and Context Context is of the greatest importance for the understanding of meaning. Meaning depends on context. ( William Branford, 1967) The best way to study semantics is to examine the meaning of particular words in their context. ( Brook, 1958) Meaning and Context Without context, there is no way of determining the very sense of the word that the speaker intends to convey; while with context, there is generally no danger of misinterpretation, for meaning lives in context and context defines meaning. (Lodwig, 1973) Two types of contexts The meanings of words, especially those of polysemous words may be viewed as determined either by linguistic (verbal) contexts or extra- linguistic (non-verbal) contexts. Linguistic (verbal) context (言语) Extra-linguistic (non-verbal) context (非言语） Two types of contexts Linguistic context refers to words, clauses, sentences, paragraphs, or the whole book in which a word appears. Extra-linguistic context refers to a particular time, space, or culture in which a word appears. the actual speech situation the entire cultural background Linguistic context Linguistic context can be further divided into Lexical context Grammatical context Lexical context: the lexemes that co-occur with the word in question. The meaning of the word is affected or determined