英語歧義的語用研究英語論文

1、. . . . XXXX大學本科畢業(yè)論文（設計）任務書編 號：論文（設計）題目： 英語歧義的語用研究 學 院： XXX學院 專業(yè)： 英語翻譯 班級： XXXX機器翻譯班學生： XXX 學號：XXXXX指導教師： XXX 職稱： 副教授 1、 論文（設計）研究目標與主要任務本論文的研究目標是從語用學的角度探討英語歧義的形成原因與其在交際中的應用。其主要任務是通過分析英語歧義的形成原因指導其在交際中的運用。2、 論文（設計）的主要容 本論文分為三章，第一章從合作原則和會話準則的角度分析英語歧義的產(chǎn)生原因，第二章從言語行為理論的角度分析英語歧義的產(chǎn)生原因，最后一章討論了英語歧義的應用。3、 論文（設

2、計）的基礎條件與研究路線本論文的基礎條件是不同的語言學家對語用歧義的研究結果。研究路線是對英語歧義的產(chǎn)生原因從不同的因素角度進行詳細的闡述，并將其分別應用在日常生活交際中。4、 主要參考文獻Hu, Zhuanglin.2006. Linguistics: A Course Book (3rd edition). Beijing: PekingUniversity Press.J. L. Austin. How to Do Things with Words. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2002.Leech, G

3、. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. New York: Longman Inc.何兆熊，新編語用學概要. :外語外語教育, 2000.邱述德，英語歧義. :商務印書館, 1998.5、 計劃進度階段起止日期1確定初步論文題目 3月16日前2與導師見面，確定大致圍，填開題報告和任務書，導師簽字3月16日-3月23日3提交論文提綱3月23日-3月30日4交初稿和文獻綜述3月30日-4月20日5交終稿和評議書5月8號前指 導 教師： 年月日教研室主任： 年月日注：一式三份，學院（系）、指導教師、學生各一份XXXX大學本科生畢業(yè)論文（設計）開題報告書XXX學院 英語機器

4、翻譯專業(yè) XXX 屆學生XXX論文（設計）題目英語歧義的語用研究指導教師XXX專業(yè)職稱XXX所屬教研室英語基礎教研室研究方向語言學課題論證：從合作原則和會話準則，以與言語行為理論兩方面論證英語語用歧義的形成原因與其在交際中的應用。方案設計：第一章從合作原則和會話準則的角度分析英語歧義的產(chǎn)生原因，第二章從言語行為理論的角度分析英語歧義的產(chǎn)生原因，第三章探討英語歧義的應用。進度計劃：3月16日前確定初步論文題目 3月23日前寫開題報告、任務書3月30日前提交論文提綱4月20日前提交初稿和文獻綜述5月8日前提交終稿和評議書指導教師意見：指導教師簽名： 年 月 日教研室意見：教研室主任簽名： 年 月

5、日XXXX大學本科生畢業(yè)論文（設計）評議書姓 名XXX學院XXX學院專業(yè)機器翻譯年級（班）XXX英語機器翻譯班論文題目英語歧義的語用研究完成時間2013/5/8論文容摘要歧義是語言使用中經(jīng)常出現(xiàn)的現(xiàn)象，包括語音歧義，詞匯歧義，語法歧義等。近年來，對歧義的研究不斷深入，除了語言平面的靜態(tài)研究，也開始了對歧義的動態(tài)研究，即在語用學圍對歧義進行研究。語用歧義指說話人在特定語境或上下文中使用不確定的、模糊的或間接的話語向聽話人同時表達數(shù)種言外行為或言外之力的現(xiàn)象。目前，此類研究仍需進一步深入，本文主要從語用學的角度運用合作原則、會話準則和言語行為理論對歧義現(xiàn)象加以分析，對語用歧義的產(chǎn)生原因進行了歸納。

6、語用歧義通常會給交流帶來不便，但如果使用得當，巧妙利用語用歧義，則可以在交際中發(fā)揮奇特的作用，例如表達言外之意，產(chǎn)生幽默效果，避免沖突等。本文將原理和大量例句相結合，從語用學的角度對歧義的產(chǎn)生原因與其應用進行了詳細的分析。指導教師評語 年 月日指導教師職稱初評成績答辯小組職稱教研室組長成員答辯記錄：記錄人簽字：年月日答辯小組意見：組長簽字：年月日學院意見：評定成績：簽章年月日XXXX大學本科生畢業(yè)論文（設計）文獻綜述Literature ReviewThe study of pragmatic ambiguity has a long history.Ambiguity is a phenom

7、enon 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 dynamic study has also begun, and that is pragmatic s

8、tudy 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 needs further research. Pragmatic ambiguity arises

9、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. However, one of the fundamental facts about words and

10、 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 utterance can be understood in two or more distinct

11、 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 researches have been made in this field. In the west, ambi

12、guity 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 by Charles Morris and the category of pragmatic ambi

13、guity 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 researches, I will further explore the forming factors

14、 of pragmatic ambiguityand 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 forwards three kinds of meanings according to Hallida

15、ys 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 pragmatics, meaning and context are its two basic conce

16、pts. 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 related to language communication. Elements of context in

17、clude 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 Oxfordphilosopher Herbert Paul Grice. In real communication, the intention of

18、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 meaning of words as well as context, under the guidance of th

19、e 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 that they offer different mechanisms to explain the gener

20、ation of contextual meaning.At the end of Grices “Logic and Convention”, he mentioned a variety ofcharacteristics of implicature. (1) Calculability (2) Cancellability (3) Non-detachability (4) Non-conventionality. Grice also proposed the Cooperative Principle: Make your conversational contribution s

21、uch 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 maxim of quantity, the maxim of quality, the maxim of relat

22、ion and the maxim of manner.Oxfordphilosopher 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. They are the locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocuti

23、onary 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 act.Ambiguity sometimes causes misunderstandings, which are

24、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 of language itself, and in the contexts or communicative situa

25、tions, 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 pragmatic purposes.This thesis analyzes the phenomenon of ambig

26、uity 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 brings inconvenience to communication, but if it is properly use

27、d, 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 applications of ambiguity in terms of pragmatics.本科生畢業(yè)論文冊題目 英語歧義的語用分析

28、 學院 XXX學院 專業(yè) 英語機器翻譯專業(yè) 班級 XXX機器翻譯班 學生 XXX 指導教師 XXX 完成日期 XXX 年 5 月 8 日36 / 46Pragmatic Analysis of Ambiguity in EnglishBYXXXXProf. Fu Xiaoli, TutorA Thesis Submitted to Department of English Language and Literature in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of B.A. in English At XXXXUni

29、versityMay 8th,XXXAbstractAmbiguity 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 and deeper, besides the static study in linguistic level, the

30、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 to hearers in a specific context or text. At present, this fiel

31、d 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 different forming factors of pragmatic ambiguity. Pragmatic ambiguity

32、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 thesis will give a detailed analysis of the forming factors and

33、 applications of ambiguity in terms of pragmatics.Key wordspragmatic ambiguity forming factors applications摘要歧義是語言使用中經(jīng)常出現(xiàn)的現(xiàn)象，包括語音歧義，詞匯歧義，語法歧義等。近年來，對歧義的研究不斷深入，除了語言平面的靜態(tài)研究，也開始了對歧義的動態(tài)研究，即在語用學圍對歧義進行研究。語用歧義指說話人在特定語境或上下文中使用不確定的、模糊的或間接的話語向聽話人同時表達數(shù)種言外行為或言外之力的現(xiàn)象。目前，此類研究仍需進一步深入，本文主要從語用學的角度運用合作原則、會話準則和言語行為理論對歧

34、義現(xiàn)象加以分析，對語用歧義的產(chǎn)生原因進行了歸納。語用歧義通常會給交流帶來不便，但如果使用得當，巧妙利用語用歧義，則可以在交際中發(fā)揮奇特的作用，例如表達言外之意，產(chǎn)生幽默效果，避免沖突等。本文將原理和大量例句相結合，從語用學的角度對歧義的產(chǎn)生原因與其應用進行了詳細的分析。關鍵詞語用歧義 產(chǎn)生原因 應用 Table of ContentsChapter 1 Introduction1Chapter 2 Literature Review4Chapter 3 Cooperative Principle and Grices Conversation Maxims73.1 Essential conc

35、epts73.1.1 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 Introduction134.2 Speech Act Theory134.3 Speech act ambiguity144.4 Summary16Chapt

36、er 5 Applications of Pragmatic Ambiguity175.1 Introduction175.2 To lead to special overtones175.3 To avoid conflicts175.4 To produce humor185.5 Summary20Chapter 6 Conclusion21References22Chapter 1 IntroductionAmbiguitymayoccurwhenanutterancecanbeunderstoodintwoormoredistinctsenses.Ambiguity is an in

37、trinsic 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, besides the static study in linguistic level, the dynamic study has also begun

38、, 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,the Cooperative Principle, Grices Conversation Maxims and Speech Act Theory. Am

39、biguity 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 or illocutionary forces to hearers in a specific context or text. Pragmatic am

40、biguity 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 ambiguity is the story of King Croesus and the Oracle of Delphi (adapted from Copi

41、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 Persia, and Croesus army and kingdom were crushed.Croesus complained bitterly to

42、 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 omitted. Due to the need to infer the missing information, pragmatically ambiguous sta

43、tements 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 the oracular reply would have been to immediately ask the Oracle, Which kingdom?

44、 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 the request does not refer to a specific department. The end user could legitimate

45、ly 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 same context. We imagine receiving a telephone call from a friend far away, even l

46、iving 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 airport for various hours. Im going to show one more example. Suppose someone tells us

47、:“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”. AnEskimo, as an example, pronouncing a phrase of the sort could let us know that outside it is3 or 4 degrees!This means it is important the hearer

48、 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, implicature ambiguity and speech act ambiguity. No matter what the forming factor

49、 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 use of finite means and it is a creative activity (Robin, 1987). Pragmatic ambiguit

50、y 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 understandings. For example,(1) Lawyers to Offer Poor Free AdviceThis is a news tit

51、le, whose author takes advantage of unsure elements deliberately to create ambiguity. In terms of different pauses, there are two different understandings:a、 Lawyers toOffer (the) Poor (pause) Free Advice. It means lawyers offer free advice to the poor;b、Lawyers to Offer (pause) Poor Free Advice.It

52、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, the hearer has some kind of intention or is affected by context, thus producing differ

53、ent 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 days or fining twenty dollars. But the criminal thinks that the judge either gives him

54、 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, speaker and hearer. In communication, because of the constraint of context, polysemy

55、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 of blocking language communication, so two participants should follow the Cooperati

56、ve 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 express and understand the true meaning of their utterance, avoiding the occurrence of ambiguity. However, in the actual use of language, people