英语歧义的语用研究英语说9567705

《英语歧义的语用研究英语说9567705》由会员分享，可在线阅读，更多相关《英语歧义的语用研究英语说9567705（39页珍藏版）》请在装配图网上搜索。

1、 XXXX大学本科毕业论文（设计）任务书编 号： 论文（设计）题目： 英语歧义的语用研究 学 院： XXX学院 专业： 英语翻译 班级： XXXX机器翻译班 学生姓名： XXX 学号： XXXXX 指导教师： XXX 职称： 副教授 1、 论文（设计）研究目标及主要任务本论文的研究目标是从语用学的角度探讨英语歧义的形成原因及其在交际中的应用。其主要任务是通过分析英语歧义的形成原因指导其在交际中的运用。2、 论文（设计）的主要内容 本论文分为三章，第一章从合作原则和会话准则的角度分析英语歧义的产生原因，第二章从言语行为理论的角度分析英语歧义的产生原因，最后一章讨论了英语歧义的应用。3、 论文（设

2、计）的基础条件及研究路线本论文的基础条件是不同的语言学家对语用歧义的研究结果。研究路线是对英语歧义的产生原因从不同的因素角度进行详细的阐述，并将其分别应用在日常生活交际中。4、 主要参考文献Hu, Zhuanglin.2006. Linguistics: A Course Book (3rd edition). Beijing: Peking University Press.J. L. Austin. How to Do Things with Words. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2002.Leech,

3、G. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. New York: Longman Inc.何兆熊，新编语用学概要. 上海:上海外语外语教育出版社, 2000.邱述德，英语歧义. 北京:商务印书馆, 1998.5、 计划进度阶段起止日期1确定初步论文题目 3月16日前2与导师见面，确定大致范围，填开题报告和任务书，导师签字3月16日-3月23日3提交论文提纲3月23日-3月30日4交初稿和文献综述3月30日-4月20日5交终稿和评议书5月8号前指 导 教师： 年 月 日教研室主任： 年 月 日注：一式三份，学院（系）、指导教师、学生各一份XXXX大学本科生毕业论文（设计）

4、开题报告书 XXX 学院 英语机器翻译 专业 XXX 届学生姓名XXX论文（设计）题目英语歧义的语用研究指导教师XXX专业职称XXX所属教研室英语基础教研室研究方向语言学课题论证：从合作原则和会话准则，以及言语行为理论两方面论证英语语用歧义的形成原因及其在交际中的应用。方案设计：第一章从合作原则和会话准则的角度分析英语歧义的产生原因，第二章从言语行为理论的角度分析英语歧义的产生原因，第三章探讨英语歧义的应用。进度计划：3月16日前确定初步论文题目 3月23日前写开题报告、任务书3月30日前提交论文提纲4月20日前提交初稿和文献综述5月8日前提交终稿和评议书指导教师意见： 指导教师签名： 年 月

5、 日教研室意见： 教研室主任签名： 年 月 日XXXX大学本科生毕业论文（设计）评议书姓 名XXX学院XXX学院专业机器翻译年级（班）XXX英语机器翻译班论 文 题 目英语歧义的语用研究完成时间2013/5/8论文内容摘要歧义是语言使用中经常出现的现象，包括语音歧义，词汇歧义，语法歧义等。近年来，对歧义的研究不断深入，除了语言平面的静态研究，也开始了对歧义的动态研究，即在语用学范围内对歧义进行研究。语用歧义指说话人在特定语境或上下文中使用不确定的、模糊的或间接的话语向听话人同时表达数种言外行为或言外之力的现象。目前，此类研究仍需进一步深入，本文主要从语用学的角度运用合作原则、会话准则和言语行为

6、理论对歧义现象加以分析，对语用歧义的产生原因进行了归纳。语用歧义通常会给交流带来不便，但如果使用得当，巧妙利用语用歧义，则可以在交际中发挥奇特的作用，例如表达言外之意，产生幽默效果，避免冲突等。本文将原理和大量例句相结合，从语用学的角度对歧义的产生原因及其应用进行了详细的分析。指导教师评语 年 月 日指 导 教 师职称初评成绩答辩小组姓名职称教研室组长成员答辩记录： 记录人签字： 年 月 日答辩小组意见： 组长签字： 年 月 日学院意见： 评定成绩： 签章 年 月 日 XXXX大学本科生毕业论文（设计）文献综述Literature ReviewThe study of pragmatic am

7、biguity has a long history. Ambiguity is a phenomenon that often appears in language use. Ambiguity includes phonological ambiguity, lexical ambiguity, and grammatical ambiguity. In recent years, the research of ambiguity goes deeper and deeper, besides the static study in linguistic level, the dyna

8、mic study has also begun, and that is pragmatic study of ambiguity. Pragmatic ambiguity refers to the phenomenon that speakers use unsure, ambiguous or indirect utterance to express several illocutionary acts or illocutionary forces to hearers in a specific context or text. At present, this field ne

9、eds further research. Pragmatic ambiguity arises when the statement is not specific, and the context does not provide enough information needed to clarify the statement (Walton 1996).Information is missing, and must be inferred.All languages depend on words and sentences in constructing meaning. How

10、ever, one of the fundamental facts about words and sentences is that many of them in our languages have more than one meaning. Linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt said in 18th century that language is infinite use of finite means and it is a creative activity (Robin, 1987). So ambiguity may occur when an

11、utterance can be understood in two or more distinct senses. Kess and Hoppe even say in Ambiguity in Psycholinguistics, “upon careful consideration, one cannot but be amazed at the ubiquity in language.” English, as a language has no exception to it. Since Ambiguity is not a new topic, a lot of resea

12、rches have been made in this field. In the west, ambiguity can be traces back to the sophism of ancient Greek philosophy. However, previous researches are mainly concerned with phonological ambiguity, lexical ambiguity and grammatical ambiguity. But the word pragmatics was first put forward in 1930s

13、 by Charles Morris and the category of pragmatic ambiguity was not explored until the 1970s. So researches on pragmatic ambiguity are still insufficiently thorough, for example, its definition, characteristics, category, functions and understanding still need further study. Based upon the previous r

14、esearches, I will further explore the forming factors of pragmatic ambiguity and talk about its applications. The notion of meaning is a very important idea in the field of semantics. G. Leech recognizes seven kinds of meaning in his booksemantics, which was first published in 1974. Leech (1981) put

15、 forwards three kinds of meanings according to Hallidays systemic-functional perspective: conceptual meaning, associative meaning and thematic meaning. The associative meaning includes connotative meaning, social meaning, affective meaning, reflected meaning and collocative meaning.In the study of p

16、ragmatics, meaning and context are its two basic concepts. The meaning in pragmatics refers to the specific meaning in actual use in a particular context. Context is the environment in which speech communication takes place, which consists of a series of subjective and objective elements closely rel

17、ated to language communication. Elements of context include the utterance itself, the behavior environment and situation where speech act happens, common sense and the relationship between communication participants.The theory of conversational implicature was proposed by an Oxford philosopher Herbe

18、rt Paul Grice. In real communication, the intention of the speaker is often not the literal meaning of what he says; the real intention implied in the words is called conversational impicature. Conversational implicature is a kind of implied meaning, which is deduced based on the conventional meanin

19、g of words as well as context, under the guidance of the Cooperative Principle and its maxims. From this perspective, implicature is comparable to illocutionary force in speech act theory because they are both related to the contextual side of meaning. The difference between these two theories is th

20、at they offer different mechanisms to explain the generation of contextual meaning. At the end of Grices “Logic and Convention”, he mentioned a variety of characteristics of implicature. (1) Calculability (2) Cancellability (3) Non-detachability (4) Non-conventionality. Grice also proposed the Coope

21、rative Principle: Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. To specify the Cooperative Principle further, Grice introduced four categories of maxims as follows: the m

22、axim of quantity, the maxim of quality, the maxim of relation and the maxim of manner.Oxford philosopher John Langshaw Austin published his Speech Act theory in How to do Things with Words. According to Austen, there are three senses in which saying something may be understood as doing something. Th

23、ey are the locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act. The locutionary act is what linguists have been studying all along. The perlocutionary act involves many psychological and social factors, so it is difficult to study. So Speech Act theory is in fact a theory of the illocutionary

24、act.Ambiguity sometimes causes misunderstandings, which are obstacles in communication. A lot of linguists think that ambiguity is negative, should be avoided. Contemporary American linguist H. P. Grice in his Cooperative Principle mentions avoiding ambiguity. But ambiguity is an internal phenomenon

25、 of language itself, and in the contexts or communicative situations, most of the ambiguity phenomenon will be eliminated automatically (Kooij, 1974:4). Therefore, if ambiguity is properly made use of, it not only wont produce misunderstandings, but also can achieve a certain rhetorical effects and

26、pragmatic purposes.This thesis analyzes the phenomenon of ambiguity from the pragmatic perspective under the guidance of cooperative principle; conversational implicature and speech act theory and gives a generalization of different forming factors of pragmatic ambiguity. Pragmatic ambiguity often b

27、rings inconvenience to communication, but if it is properly used, it will have special effects, such as leading to special overtones, producing humor, avoiding conflicts and so on. Combining principles with a lot of examples, the thesis will give a detailed analysis of the forming factors and applic

28、ations of ambiguity in terms of pragmatics. 本科生毕业论文册 题目 英语歧义的语用分析 学院 XXX学院 专业 英语机器翻译专业 班级 XXX机器翻译班 学生 XXX 指导教师 XXX 完成日期 XXX 年 5 月 8 日 Pragmatic Analysis of Ambiguity in EnglishBYXXXXProf. Fu Xiaoli, TutorA Thesis Submitted to Department of English Language and Literature in Partial Fulfillment of th

29、e Requirements for the Degree of B.A. in English At XXXX UniversityMay 8th,XXX Abstract Ambiguity is a phenomenon that often appears in language use. Ambiguity includes phonological ambiguity, lexical ambiguity, grammatical ambiguity and so on. In recent years, the research of ambiguity goes deeper

30、and deeper, besides the static study in linguistic level, the dynamic study has also begun, and that is pragmatic study of ambiguity. Pragmatic ambiguity refers to the phenomenon that speakers use unsure, ambiguous or indirect utterance to express several illocutionary acts or illocutionary forces t

31、o hearers in a specific context or text. At present, this field needs further research. This thesis analyzes the phenomenon of ambiguity from the pragmatic perspective under the guidance of cooperative principle, conversational implicature and speech act theory and gives a generalization of differen

32、t forming factors of pragmatic ambiguity. Pragmatic ambiguity often brings inconvenience to communication, but if it is properly used, it will have special effects, such as leading to special overtones, producing humor, avoiding conflicts and so on. Combining principles with a lot of examples, the t

33、hesis will give a detailed analysis of the forming factors and applications of ambiguity in terms of pragmatics.Key words pragmatic ambiguity forming factors applicationsiii 摘要歧义是语言使用中经常出现的现象，包括语音歧义，词汇歧义，语法歧义等。近年来，对歧义的研究不断深入，除了语言平面的静态研究，也开始了对歧义的动态研究，即在语用学范围内对歧义进行研究。语用歧义指说话人在特定语境或上下文中使用不确定的、模糊的或间接的话语

34、向听话人同时表达数种言外行为或言外之力的现象。目前，此类研究仍需进一步深入，本文主要从语用学的角度运用合作原则、会话准则和言语行为理论对歧义现象加以分析，对语用歧义的产生原因进行了归纳。语用歧义通常会给交流带来不便，但如果使用得当，巧妙利用语用歧义，则可以在交际中发挥奇特的作用，例如表达言外之意，产生幽默效果，避免冲突等。本文将原理和大量例句相结合，从语用学的角度对歧义的产生原因及其应用进行了详细的分析。关键词 语用歧义 产生原因 应用iv Table of ContentsChapter 1 Introduction1Chapter 2 Literature Review4Chapter 3

35、 Cooperative Principle and Grices Conversation Maxims73.1 Essential concepts73.1.1 Meaning73.1.2 Context83.2 Theoretical contribution93.2.1 The Conversational Implicature93.2.2 Cooperative Principle and Grices Conversation Maxims103.3 Implicature ambiguity10Chapter 4 Speech Act Theory134.1 Introduct

36、ion134.2 Speech Act Theory134.3 Speech act ambiguity144.4 Summary16Chapter 5 Applications of Pragmatic Ambiguity175.1 Introduction175.2 To lead to special overtones175.3 To avoid conflicts175.4 To produce humor18v 5.5 Summary20Chapter 6 Conclusion21References2231 Chapter 1 IntroductionAmbiguitymayoc

37、curwhenanutterancecanbeunderstoodintwoormoredistinctsenses.Ambiguity is an intrinsic phenomenon in English language. There are several types of ambiguity, such as phonological ambiguity, lexical ambiguity and grammatical ambiguity. In recent years, the research of ambiguity goes deeper and deeper, b

38、esides the static study in linguistic level, the dynamic study has also begun, and that is pragmatic study of ambiguity. And the focus of this paper is to present the pragmatic analysis of ambiguity with the concepts of meaning and context, as well as the theories of the Conversational Implicature,

39、the Cooperative Principle, Grices Conversation Maxims and Speech Act Theory. Ambiguity often appears in our conversation, in the speech or even in the writing. Pragmatic ambiguity refers to the phenomenon that speakers use unsure, ambiguous or indirect utterance to express several illocutionary acts

40、 or illocutionary forces to hearers in a specific context or text. Pragmatic ambiguity arises when the statement is not specific, and the context does not provide enough information needed to clarify the statement (Walton 1996).Information is missing, and must be inferred.An example of pragmatic amb

41、iguity is the story of King Croesus and the Oracle of Delphi (adapted from Copi and Cohen 1990):“King Croesus consulted the Oracle of Delphi before warring with Cyrus of Persia. The Oracle replied that, if Croesus went to war with Cyrus, he would destroy a mighty kingdom.Delighted, Croesus attacked

42、Persia, and Croesus army and kingdom were crushed.Croesus complained bitterly to the Oracles priests, who replied that the Oracle had been entirely right.By going to war with Persia, Croesus had destroyed a mighty kingdom his own.”The information necessary to clearly understand the message is omitte

43、d. Due to the need to infer the missing information, pragmatically ambiguous statements have multiple possible interpretations (Walton 1996).Croesus interpreted the Oracles statement as indicating his success in battle the response he desired. As noted by Hamblin (1970), Croesus logical response to

44、the oracular reply would have been to immediately ask the Oracle, Which kingdom? Further information is needed to resolve pragmatic ambiguity. In the case of an information request, pragmatic ambiguity exists in the request for “A report of all the clients for a department.” The ambiguity is that th

45、e request does not refer to a specific department. The end user could legitimately prepare a report for any department. Further information is needed to resolve this actual ambiguity in this case.Pragmatic ambiguities are born when the communication happens between two agents who do not share the sa

46、me context. We imagine receiving a telephone call from a friend far away, even living in a different continent:“I will arrive to the airport at 12 oclock.”In this case, speaker and listener, because of different jet lags, do not share the same context and probably one of them will wait in the airpor

47、t for various hours. Im going to show one more example. Suppose someone tells us:“Outside is very warm.”The information that we can learn from this phrase is complete only if we know who has pronounced it and his concept of “warmth”. An Eskimo, as an example, pronouncing a phrase of the sort could l

48、et us know that outside it is 3 or 4 degrees! This means it is important the hearer knows or could suppose as much as possible about the speaker and his knowledge (say world model).There are several types of pragmatic ambiguity in terms of their different forming factors, such as discourse ambiguity

49、, implicature ambiguity and speech act ambiguity. No matter what the forming factor is, ambiguity lies in the difference of meaning. Speech communication takes place between at least two participantsa speaker and a hearer. Linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt said in 18th century that language is infinite

50、use of finite means and it is a creative activity (Robin, 1987). Pragmatic ambiguity is a phenomenon that arises from communication activity. There are two forming conditions of pragmatic ambiguity:First, the speaker use unsure or indirect utterance, which makes the hearer have two or more than two

51、understandings. For example,(1) Lawyers to Offer Poor Free AdviceThis is a news title, whose author takes advantage of unsure elements deliberately to create ambiguity. In terms of different pauses, there are two different understandings:a、 Lawyers to Offer (the) Poor (pause) Free Advice. It means l

52、awyers offer free advice to the poor;b、Lawyers to Offer (pause) Poor Free Advice.It means lawyers offer free but poor advice.The author deliberately took advantage of ambiguity to combine the two meanings together which has the effect of pun.Second, although the speakers utterance is quite clear, th

53、e hearer has some kind of intention or is affected by context, thus producing different understandings, for instance,(2) Judge: Guilty! Ill give you ten days or twenty dollars.Prisoner: Ill take the twenty dollars, judge.Here the meaning of the judges utterance is either staying in prison for ten da

54、ys or fining twenty dollars. But the criminal thinks that the judge either gives him ten days, or gives him twenty dollars. Obviously ambiguity occurs because of the hearers different understandings.In terms of pragmatics, there are two factors finally leading to ambiguity: first, context; second, s

55、peaker and hearer. In communication, because of the constraint of context, polysemy in semantics usually does not lead to pragmatic ambiguity. But there are also cases that different meanings can be figured out in a particular context, thus ambiguity occurs. Usually ambiguity has the negative effect

56、 of blocking language communication, so two participants should follow the Cooperative Principle and Conversational Maxims which includes the maxim of quality, maxim of quantity, maxim of relevance and maxim of manner put up by linguist HP Grice in language communication, and try their best to expre

57、ss and understand the true meaning of their utterance, avoiding the occurrence of ambiguity. However, in the actual use of language, people often take advantage of the contradiction in the internal language construction or ambiguous utterance to express specific intentions as well as achieve ideal p

58、ragmatic effects. For example, people take advantage of ambiguity to express the tone of euphemism or satire, to achieve the effects of pun and humor, or to make language live and glamorous. The thesis gives a pragmatic analysis of the positive effects of ambiguity in English and presents the clever

59、 use of ambiguity.For example, pun is the positive use of ambiguity. The speaker intends to expose the meaning and the hearer tries hard to guess the true meaning of the speakers utterance. The two participants both follow the Cooperative Principle, so they can create and understand the delicacy. For instance,(3) Waiter: W