Context 英语语用学[共50页].ppt

Contact me Yanling Tang;An Introduction to Pragmatics A Course for B.A. Students Instructor: Prof. Tang Yanling唐燕玲;Context;Outline;;;Part 2: A general description of context; Physical context: we can think of this in terms of where the conversation is taking place, what objects are present, what actions are occurring, and so forth. Epistemic context: the epistemic context refers to what speakers know about the world. For example, what background knowledge shared by the speakers is crucially part of our epistemic knowledge when we have a conversation with someone else.; Linguistic context: the linguistic context refers to what has been said already in the utterance. For example, if I begin a discussion by referring to Jane Smith and in the next sentence refer to her as being a top notch athlete, the linguistic context lets me know that the antecedent of her (the person her refers to) is Jane Smith. Social context: the social context refers to the social relationship among speakers and hearers. ; Example: Think about the discussion of the library scene in Language Files. Two people come into a library and they are talking really loud. They sit at your table and continue their babbling. So, you look up at them and say: Excuse me, could you please speak up a bit more? I missed what you said. ; What do we know pragmatically about your utterance? What contributes to our understanding of why its literal meaning (i.e. please speak up) departs so much from what its intended meaning is (i.e. shut up!)? Consider some of the contextual properties of the utterance. ; physical: the conversation occurs in a library epistemic: libraries are quiet places linguistic: sarcastic tone of voice (intonation cues are linguistic) social context: you have the right to ask someone to be quiet in a place where people are supposed to be quiet, especially if their rule-breaking