Chinese Word Meaning On-line Interpretation:a Lexical Pragmatics Approach

Context is indispensable for language understanding, especially for word meaning interpretation, because it affects word meaning on-line interpretation both in direction and content, removing its indeterminacy, variability and relativity, by means of which word meaning obtains soleness in specific utterances. Currently, more and more language researchers at home and abroad have found the study of word meaning is bound up with the study of language in use and vice versa, especially pragmatic changes of word meaning in concrete contexts. This dissertation, from the perspective of modern lexical pragmatics and under the framework of pragmatics theories, makes a systematic study of lexico-pragmatic enrichment in Chinese discourse understanding by referring to traditional linguistics at the same time, with Chinese exegetics in particular. The aim is to analyze, describe and categorize lexico-pragmatic enrichment in different strata of context through a fairly large corpus and then gives an account of individual’s psycho-cognitive mechanism and understanding path in communication with the relevance-adaptation analytic model we construct.The dissertation is composed of six chapters. Chapter1is the introduction part, in which background and rationale, subject and content, methodology and corpora, purpose and significance of this study are briefly introduced. A detailed review of past research on lexical pragmatics or pragmatic study of lexicology in China and overseas is also presented.Chapter2is the theoretic foundation. First, in order to find the philosophic value and motive force for the present study, we will argue that lexical pragmatics has philosophic origins from three aspects, which are the relationship between lexical pragmatics and pragmatics, the linguistic turning of philosophy, and school of ordinary language philosophy. Second, a systemic introduction to relevance theory and adaptation theory is given, including their origins, influences and main ideas about context and discourse understanding, all of which will be taken as the guiding ideology for the whole dissertation.Chapter3is an analysis of word meaning enrichment in different strata of context. Based on the previous studies of context, a new contextual stratification is proposed. From the perspective of lexical pragmatics, context, affecting pragmatic enrichment of word meaning on-line interpretation, is divided into six strata within three categories. They are:linguistic context, including lexical context, phrasal context, sentential context and super-sentential context; extra-linguistic context; cognitive context. Then, through abundant data, we describe the pragmatic enrichment of word meaning on-line interpretation in different strata of context and analyze the unified contextual influences and constraints on the process of lexico-pragmatic enrichment.Chapter4is the categorization of lexico-pragmatic enrichment in discourse understanding. By taking a few typical words and phrasal structures as examples, a macro-description of lexico-pragmatic enrichment universally existing in Chinese discourse understanding is presented. The main part of this chapter is the re-categorization of lexico-pragmatic enrichment by new criteria with some current research outcomes for reference. One criterion is horizontal, by which lexico-pragmatic enrichment can be divided into four types:zero enrichment, pragmatic narrowing, pragmatic broadening and pragmatic transferring; the other criterion is vertical, by which lexico-pragmatic enrichment can be divided into three types, that is, pragmatic enrichment of inter-sense, intra-sense and exo-sense.Chapter5is a relevance-adaptation-theoretic account of lexico-pragmatic enrichment. First, a relevance-adaptation analytic model is constructed based on the core ideas of the two theories which are introduced in Chapter2. And then this model is used to penetrate individual’s cognitive psychology and deep motivation in the process of lexico-pragmatic enrichment during discourse understanding. The property of contextual adaptation of lexico-pragmatic enrichment is also discussed from interpreting general lexical meaning and functional meaning of words. Through the discussion, lots of lexico-pragmatic changes that occur in surface structure find good explanations from the properties of language itself and deep structure.Chapter6is theoretic ponderation over lexical pragmatics and its application in some other disciplines. It is a kind of extension of the previous chapters. First, the linguistic value and prospect of (Chinese) lexical pragmatics is forecast on the levels of both theory and practice. Second, implications elicited from lexical pragmatics for the fields of translation, vocabulary teaching and text analysis are exemplified and explored. At last, the great practical significance and possible breakthroughs of applied research in lexical pragmatics is pointed out.The major originality of this dissertation lies in the following three aspects:the first point goes to a breakthrough in the study of context, that is, a new contextual stratification is proposed, which is more intensive and extensive than any existent categorization of context, especially the proposal of lexical context better demonstrates Chinese word formation and use. As for the connotation and functions of cognitive context, the present elucidation is completely different from other scholar’s views on seemingly the same concept in the field of pragmatics and cognitive pragmatics, broadening the vision for lexico-pragmatic research; the second point goes to the new vertical criterion for categorizing lexico-pragmatic enrichment, that is, pragmatic changes in word use can be quested on three levels:meanings of one word, one meaning of one word, the relationship between one meaning of one word and one meaning of another word. This is really a supplement to the current categorization of lexico-pragmatic enrichment proposed by other researchers. The third point goes to the relevance-adaptation analytic model we construct. Based on the two theories, we manage to give full play to their own advantages and use the model to investigate the property of contextual adaptation in word meaning on-line interpretation and the psycho-cognitive mechanism working in lexico-pragmatic enrichment during discourse understanding. Consequently, lots of lexico-pragmatic changes that occur in surface structure find more reasonable explanations. The deepened research goes beyond some previous analyses made on the level of surface structure by resorting to more than one pragmatics theory, and therefore reaches more convincing conclusions.