English Lexicology Meaning and Context

1. English LexicologyMeaning and Context Week 11 Instructor: Liu Hongyong

2. 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.

3. Meaning and Context • Two types of contexts • Linguistic context • Non-linguistic context • Three functions of context • Eliminating ambiguity • Indication of referents • Conveying emotional overtones

4. Context No matter how many meanings a word may have, there will be no risk of misunderstanding, when it occurs in a particular context. Then what is a context?

5. Two types of contexts • The meaning s 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）

6. Two types of contexts • Linguistic context refers to words, clauses, sentences, paragraphs, or whole books in which a word appears. • Extra-linguistic context refers to a particular time, space, or culture in which a word appears.

7. 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 by the neighboring lexemes.

8. Example: paper The word “paper” has a number of meanings in the dictionary, but in each of the following context, it conveys only one meaning. • a sheet of paper • a white paper • a term paper • today’s paper • examination paper It is obvious that the main reason for bringing out this or that meaning of the word “paper” is the specific words which the word “paper” is combined with.

9. Grammatical context • In some cases, the meaning of a polysemous word may be determined by the grammatical structure(not specific words) in which it occurs. get+NP:get a big apple; get an interestingbook get+AP:get very angry; get incredibly cold get…to do…:I got him to do the job. receive become cause

10. Extra-linguistic context • The actual speech situation refers to the situation in which a word is used. In everyday life, word meaning is more often dependent on the actual situation in which a word is used. • Example: operation • Example: John’s really quick. • John is a runner. • The teacher told a joke, and then all the students but John laughed. Then John laughed. Then one of the students says: John’s really quick. (quick is used ironically to mean the opposite slow).

11. Extra-linguistic context • The extra-linguistic context may extend to include the entire cultural background. trade union Organization of workers formed to fight for their interests against the employers. gonghui Organization of workers under the leadership of Party. No fighting! No negotiating! • More examples: peasant vs. 农民 liberalism vs. 自由主义

12. The importance of context in… • Eliminating ambiguity • Conveying emotional overtones • Indicating referents and the range of the meaning of a word

13. Eliminating ambiguity • Ambiguity refers to a word, a phrase, a sentence with more than one possible meaning. Ambiguity may be caused by different things. • Polysemy may cause ambiguity. Mary baked a birthday cake for her mother. • Homonymy may cause ambiguity. The ball was attractive. • Grammatical structuremay cause ambiguity. Visiting relatives may be boring. 约翰 拔 了 三 颗 蛀 牙。 Yuehan ba le san ke zhu ya. Chick pull-out Aux three CL rotten tooth ‘John pulled out three rotten teeth.’ ‘John got three rotten teeth pulled out.’ 鸡 不 吃 了。 Ji bu chi le. Chick Neg eat Aux ‘The chicken does not eat.’ ‘I don’t eat chicken any more.’

14. Eliminating ambiguity The damage was done by the river. The ball was attractive. Visiting relatives may be boring. 鸡 不吃了。 约翰拔了三颗蛀牙。 Ambiguity very often disappears in contexts, linguistic or extra-linguistic. The context often makes the ambiguous meaning so certain that we do no think of the fact that the word or the structure has different meanings.

15. Indication of referents: contexts can help identify the referents of pronouns. Betty, Mary and Alice are classmates. Betty told Mary that Alice was angry. • She said it secretly. • But she didn’t believe her. • But she was not angry.

16. Conveying emotional overtones • Some appreciative word may acquire unfavorable meaning in certain contexts. 听完二乐子的满口秽言，小李不无讽刺的说：“你真是出口成章呀！” • Some derogatory word may acquire appreciative meaning in certain context. 当他听完高一民关于利用激光侦破走私光盘的设想后，不禁猛地拍了高一民一掌说：“好一个大野心家，我怎么没发现你呀！”

17. Conveying emotional overtones • Some neutral word can in certain contexts acquire favorable or unfavorable emotional overtones. 如今的海外华人， 一提到“中国”二字就感到无限的骄傲和自豪。 骄傲是成功的头号敌人。    他对上级下达的任务，常常是应付了事，置若罔闻。 这类事情不好应付，得想个万全之策才行。 类似“骄傲”、“应付”之类的词很多，诸如：旁若无人、移花接木、曝光、委曲求全、寿终正寝等等，这类词的感情色彩必须在语境中区分，不可能单独拿出来问它们的感情色彩，更不能武断的判其为中性词。