A Study Of Deviated Rhetoric From The Perspective Of Context

Language variation is one of the most important contents in sociolinguistics. Deviated rhetoric in broad sense refers to the research on rhetoric effect of language from the perspective of language variation, and it can also be called the deviated form of conventional rhetoric. The occurrence of deviated rhetoric is closely related with the context on which language rhetoric heavily depends. The context plays an important role in interpreting the deviated rhetoric: the context plays a decisive and restrictive role when the communicators choose deviated rhetoric, and it also has the explanative function during the process of understanding deviated rhetoric. For a long time, people put much attention on some aspects of deviated rhetoric such as its motivation, but ignore one important element the context, which is essential during the use, interpretation and understanding process of deviated rhetoric.Based on the review of deviated rhetoric, this thesis discusses the connotation, denotation and features of deviated rhetoric, and thinks that its use must accord with the environment; therefore, the meaning activation of deviated rhetoric cannot separate from its context.Firstly, this thesis expounds the context activation of deviated rhetoric from the aspects of situation activation and mode activation through lots of related corpus. It points out that the two typical situational contexts the campus and the family can easily activate the understanding of deviated rhetoric, and the dynamic activation and static activation are two practicable and necessary modes in the context activation of deviated rhetoric. Secondly, this thesis analyzes the context information of deviated rhetoric from the angle of context field, context meaning, overt context information and covert context information on the basis of the analysis of situation activation. As the background during the communicative process, the context field determines the communicative information, while the context meaning refers to the meaning of a word in specific situation, namely, the temporary meaning of a word in different situations. The thesis thinks that the context can make the readers decode and obtain more clearly the implicit information of the deviated rhetoric: the overt context can deliver the information of the deviated rhetoric directly, and lead the readers or hearers exactly understand the meaning of the deviated rhetoric, while the covert context can make the illocutionary meaning stand out indirectly, have an influence upon the communicators choice and adjustment of language, and produce different language forms and styles so as to better achieve the special rhetoric effect of the deviated rhetoric. In the meanwhile, this thesis puts forward that the context activation needs the functions of context to get the context information of deviated rhetoric. The function of position-setting, style-choosing, background-filling and article-predicting can help the deviated rhetoric maximize the rhetoric effect in particular context. Communication subjects, communication purposes, communication occasions, certain context, the style-choosing, etc. make up of language environment and constraints the use of deviated rhetoric; therefore, the context can fill up the semantic blankness of deviated rhetoric, understand the implicit meaning of deviated forms, explain the illogical deviated expressions, and help forecast the following text so as to make the readers and hearers better understand the deviated rhetoric and grasp the context information exactly in specific context. After analyzing the situation activation, context information and context functions of the deviated rhetoric, this thesis lastly probes into the context activation mechanism of deviated rhetoric: only through the context activation and the functions of the context, can readers get the context information and thus achieve the best expression effect of the deviated rhetoric.