英语本科毕业论文-个体语言与语境.doc

本科毕业论文 个体语言与语境学生姓名： 学生学号： 200310206010 院（系）： 外国语学院 年级专业： 2003级英语本科2班 指导教师： 二七年五月Individual Speech and ContextZhang LihuaUnder the Supervision of Li LiqinSchool of foreign Languages and CulturesPanzhihua UniversityMay 2007攀枝花学院本科毕业文 ContentsContents Abstract.IKey Words.I摘要.II关键词.IIIntroduction.1I. Individual Speech. 3 A.Individual Speech Characteristics.3B.Individual Speech Functions.31. Interpersonal Function. . . . . . . 32. Informative.43. Performative.54. Emotive Function.55. Phatic Communion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66. Recreational Function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6II. Context Characteristics. . .7A. Objective Practicability. .7B. Entirety. .7C. Dynamic.7D Difference. .8III. The Relationship of Individual Speech and Context. 8A. Contexts Influence on the Individual Speech . . . 8 B.Influence of Individual Speech on Context. . . . .9Conclusion.11Acknowledgements.12Bibliography.13攀枝花学院本科毕业论文 AbstractAbstractThe individual spoken language or individual speech thoroughly affects people's daily life which simultaneously provides the survival environment for the individual speech, and the survival environment is called context. Individual speech is not only influenced by linguistic context but also affects the context. Their relationship is mutually affecting and restricted. But in daily life, the people could often regard the individual speech which is always neglected as the natural existence. This research about the relationship between individual speech and context can smoothly promote peoples communication in order to achieve the goal of society exchanges.Key WordsIndividual speech; context; communication; speech functions; context characteristics攀枝花学院本科毕业论文 摘要摘要个体语言深入人们的日常生活，同时日常生活又为个体语言提供了生存环境，也就是语言环境或语境。个体语言不但受语境的影响，反之它也影响着语境，二者的关系是相互影响，相互制约的。但是在日常生活中，人们往往会把个体语言视为理所当然的存在而忽视了对它的认识。本课题对语言和语境关系的研究有利于促进人们日常生活中的交际活动顺利完成，从而实现社会交际的目的。关键词个体语言； 语境； 交际活动； 语言的功能；语境的性质II攀枝花学院本科毕业论文 IntroductionIntroductionThe speech is a tool for human being to share experience, communicate thought and pass on knowledge from generation to generation. As early as in the 1920s, a school of Anthropological Study of Linguistics came into being in English. For instance, when Malinowski, an anthropologist, did his field work on the Trobriand Islands off eastern New Guinea, he observed that in this primitive culture the meaning of a word greatly depended upon its occurrence in a given context, or rather, upon a real language situation in life. Take the word wood for example. In this culture, the word might be used either to refer to the solid substance of a tree as its English equivalent suggests, or more specifically, to designate a canoe, which served as a useful means of transportation to these islanders and therefore played an important role in the daily life of this Speech Community. The second interpretation of this word was, however, turned out to be heavily situationally or culturally specified and might not be easily captured by an outsider from a different cultural background. Based on phenomena like this, Malinowski claimed that "In its primitive uses, language functions as a link in concerted human activity.It is a mode of action and not an instrument of reflection.” Needless to say, the work by Malinowski paved the way for a cultural, rather, a contextual study of language use in Britain. Strongly influenced by this anthropological view of language and being fully aware of the importance of the context in the study of language use, Firth, a leading figure in a model for illustrating the close relationship between language use and its co-occurrent factors.China also gradually moves to research the language and the linguistic environment. Since 1990's, a pretty important aspect that Chinese literary language reforms is adopting "individual language tactics" which refers that individual spoken language takes individual experience as the basis of superficial characteristics, resisting common experience and common language, and proposing that fundamental characteristic should have history creativeness and the individual difference. The Chinese researchers have made the important contribution for the context research.2 The research can teach us how to use spoken language in certain social scene and help us to achieve certain social goal. Everyone has his or her own speaking way which is regarded as individual spoken language. Different individual spoken language may reflect the different external context and situation.攀枝花学院本科毕业文 BodyI. Individual SpeechLanguage is a natural object, a component of the human mind, physically represented in the brain and part of the biological endowment of the species. Every speaker can produce and understand an unbounded number of linguistic expressions in normal language use (Chomsky, 3).A. Individual Speech CharacteristicsSociality, refers to the specific abstract language system, namely language material and language rule, also is "the language" which was said by psychology. Language is social and convention in that language is a social semiotic and communication can only take place effectively if all the users share a broad understanding of human interaction including such associated factors as nonverbal cues, motivation, and socio-cultural roles.Individuality refers to the individual express their thought by grasping language knowledge on the exchange process, namely the actual words. The psychology calls it "the spoken language"(speech).B. Individual Speech Functions1. Interpersonal FunctionBy far the most important sociological use of language is the interpersonal function, by which people establish and maintain their status in a society. In the framework of functional grammar, this function is concerned with interaction between the addresser and addressee in the discourse situation and the addresser's attitude toward what he speaks or writes about. For example, the ways in which people address others and refer to themselves (e.g. Dear Sir, Dear Professor, Johnny, yours, your obedient servant) indicate the various grades of interpersonal relation." Language serves to establish and maintain social rules, which include the communication roles created by language itself-for example the roles of questioner and respondent, which we take on by asking or answering a question;.Through this function,.social groups are delimited, and the individual is identified and reinforced, since by enabling him to interact with others language also serves in the expression and development of his own personality." Attached to the interpersonal function of language is its function of the expression of identity. For example, the chanting of a crowd at a football match, the shouting of names or slogans at public meetings, and the stage managed audience reactions to TV games shows all signal who we are and where we belong. Language marks our identity, physically in terms of age, sex, and voiceprints; psychologically in terms of accents, dialects; ethnically and socially in terms of social stratification, class, status, role, solidarity and distance. The interpersonal function is such a broad category that it is often discussed under various other terms as in the following per formative, emotive, expressive and plastic function of language. They seem to emphasize different aspects of the interpersonal function.2. InformativeFor most people the information function is predominantly the major role of language. Language is the instrument of thought and people often feel need to speak their thoughts aloud, for instance, when they are working on a math problem. The use of language to record the facts is a prerequisite of social development. This is indeed an important function of language.It is also called ideational function in the framework of functional grammar. Halliday notes that “Language serves for the expression of content: that is, of the speakers experience of the real world, including the inner world of his own consciousnessIn serving this function, language also gives structure to experience, and helps to determine our way of looking at things, so that it requires some intellectual effort to see them in any other way than that which our language suggests to us.”3. PerformativeThe performative function of individual language is primarily to change the social status of persons, as in marriage ceremonies, the sentencing of criminals, the blessing of children, the naming of a ship at a launching ceremony, and the cursing of enemies. The kind of language employed in performative verbal acts is usually quite formal and even ritualized.The performative function can extend to the control of reality as on some magical or religious occasions. For example, in Chinese when someone breaks a bowl or a plate the host or the people present are likely to say sui sui ping an (every year be safe and happy) as a means of controlling the forces which the believers feel might affect their lives.4. Emotive FunctionAccording to some investigation, though the conveying of some information occurs in most uses of language, it probably represents not more than 20 percent of what takes place in verbal communication. The emotion function of language is one of the most powerful uses of language because it is so crucial in changing the emotional status of an audience for or against someone or something. According to David Crystal, it is a means of getting rid of our nervous energy when we under stress, e.g. swear words, obscenities, involuntary verbal reactions to beautiful art or scenery; conventional words/phrases, e.g. God, My, Damn it, what a sight, Wow, UghThe expressive function can often be entirely personal and totally without any implication of communication to others. For example, a man may say ouch! After striking a fingernail with a hammer, or he may mutter damn when realizing that he has forgotten an appointment. Exclamations such as Man! Oh Boy! are usually uttered without any purpose of communicating to others, but as essentially a verbal response to a persons own feeling. Such expressive utterances can also be a communal response of a group of people who reinforce one anothers expressive use of language to show their solidarity.5. Phatic CommunionThe term PHATIC COMMUNION originates from Malinowski's study of the function of language performed by Trobriand Islanders. It refers to the social interaction of language, Mrs. P sneezes violently. Mrs. Q: Bless you. Mrs. P: Thank you. We all use such small, seemingly meaningless expressions to maintain a comfortable relationship between people without involving any factual content. Ritual exchanges about health and weather such as "Good morning, God bless you, Nice day” often state the obvious. Yet they indicate that a channel of communication is open if it should be needed. And different cultures have different topics of phatic communion. According to David Crystal, the weather is not universal conversation filler as the English might like to think. Rundi women, upon taking leave, routinely and politely say" I must go home now, or my husband will beat me." Broadly speaking, this function refers to expressions that help define and maintain interpersonal relations, such as slang, jokes, jargons, ritualistic exchanges, and switches to social and regional dialects. We have to learn a large repertoire of such usages if we are to interact comfortably with different people.6. Recreational FunctionThe recreational function of a language is often overlooked because it seems so restrictive in purpose and supposedly so limited in usefulness. However, no one will deny the use of language for the sheer joy of using it, such as a babys babbling or a chanters chanting. In the Latin and Islamic worlds as well as in some areas of China, there is widespread use of verbal dueling, in which one singer begins a song of usually few lines and challenges his opponent to continue the content or provide a rejoinder in a similar rhythm and rhyme scheme. Such verbal duels may last for a few hours and is performed for the sheer joy of playing on language.If you observe a childrens play, you will find the power of sound. Sometimes even nonsensical lyrics help to control the game, and the children plainly take great delight in it. Adults also have their way to appreciate language for its own sake. For instance, poetry writing gives them the pleasure of using language for its sheer beauty. We are getting very close here to Jakobsons poetic function.II. Context CharacteristicsAny speech which human beings communicate with each other is concrete, and carries on in the certain time and place, in other words, any language context can not leave speakers, listeners, situation, the matter and so on. And all of those elements called context. A. Objective Practicability.All the human relations are in certain context, which reflects the objectivity of the individual speech. It is very obvious at many aspects, such as time, place, and society. In the specific human relations activities, the relationship between the former sentence and the later can forms can a context which is objective and affect the human relation activities in commutations. B. Entirety.As an independent essential factor, linguis