Lexical Connotation and English Teaching词汇隐义和英语教学.doc

Lexical Connotation and English Teaching词汇隐义和英语教学摘要：本篇试图运用词汇学、语义学和实用学理论分析词汇隐义，包括灵活性、模糊性和双向性。同时，文化公司共性在帮助学生掌握词汇隐义上也具有重要作用。关键词：隐义 引申 文化 含义Outline1.Lexical Connotation Semantic Feature1.1Flexibility Connotation1.2Indeterminacy.1.3Emotionality1.4Open-ended Property2.Lexical Connotation Instruction2.1Textual Context2.2Paralinguistic Context2.3Nonlinguistic Context提纲一.词汇隐义的语义特征1.1灵活性1.2模糊性1.3抒情性1.4双向性二、词汇隐义讲授2.1 语篇含义2.2 边语言含义2.3 非语言含义 In a language a word consists of lexical denotation and connotation as well as extended meaning. Among them, connotation is the most arduous to appreciate for it comprises flexibility, indeterminacy, emotionality & open ended property. It is these characteristics that make connotation one of the intractable problem s that remains to be solved in English teaching. This paper aim s at analyzing connotation and finding out how it is restricted, determined and comprehended from two aspects: one is lexical connotation semantic feature and the other is context.1 Lexical Connotation Semantic Feature Lexical connotation is attached to associational meaning, which possesses nondistinctive feature. It has four semantic features: flexibility, indeterminacy, emotionality and open ended property.1.1Flexibility Connotation is typified by flexibility. Under context free conditions it is displayed as fluidity, under context sensitive conditions as determinacy. Evidently it is closely related to context, which testifies the relation between connotation and denotation to be the one between intralingua meaning and interlingual meaning. e. g. A dog is a canine quadruped domestic animal in the mammal fam ily in term s of its denotation 1 ( P91). Except for its denotation, “dog” insinuates several connotative meanings such as “warning”, “frightening” 4 ( P4)or in turn “being terrified and asking for help” when the speaker says “Dog! ”to the hearer loudly. The first two meanings are associated with the use of a dog in that it can serve as an entrance guard, but the last meaning is involved in the nature of a dog which sometimes injures a person. If the speaker may become the dogs victim, the connotation means “being terrified and asking the hearer for help ”. From the example we see that the shift of connotation from fluidity to determinacy reveals the indirect link between connotation and denotation and that connotation amounts to additional meaning that cant be consulted in monolingual dictionaries or in bilingual dictionaries as it is not appurtenant to the semantic radiation range of a words denotation so that it cannot be detected in the diachronic meaning or the synchronic meaning of the word.1.2 Indeterminacy. Indeterminacy is another semantic feature possessed by connotation 3 ( P18), which is changeable and nebulous, thus producing many meanings in context free circumstances. Take for example“ It is cold in here”, within which “cold”, apart from expressing“ low in temperature ” in its denotation, bears connotative meanings such as “asking ( the hearer to close the window, to turn on the heater or to lend him clothes to warm him self) ”and the like. Apparently these meanings dont appertain to the denotation of “cold” but to the latent meaning of the word, known as the illocutionary force in semantics. The force frequently goes far beyond our comprehension and prevents us from procuring the exact context sensitive connotation. To eliminate the vagueness of “cold”, we believe it necessary to limit its connotation to a specific context so that it becomes definite and clear, or it is so irrelevant that it fails to achieve a certain pragmatic purpose on the base of relevance theory.1.3Emotionality Most connotation is typified by emotionality, which is commonly combined with figure of speech such as metaphor to express various personal sensations such as happiness, anger or surprise. e. g.“He is a Mcenroe”. “Mcenroe” is visualized as a metaphor, which involves several connotative meanings like “a bad tempered person” and “an excellent tennis p layer”, because Mcenroe was once a famous“bad boy”in tennis court though he had the first class tennis techniques. In addition, pragmatic fuzziness is often used to convey connotation. A typical example is “home” replete with emotion not only in the Western culture but in the Eastern culture. Thus, it is natural that the English proverb“East, west, home is best. ”have its Chinese equivalent because the word“home”shows us a host of connotative meanings such as warm th, comfort, safety, and so on.1. 4Open-ended Property Connotation has not merely its flexibility and indeterminacy and emotionality, but its open-ended property manifesting itself in psychological nature that is divided into two parts: one is the social psychological nature and the other is the individual psychological nature 3 ( P17). They are reflected in a wealth of languages in the world. e. g. The English idiom “a wolf in sheeps clothing” is sometimes used to refer to a wicked person, so that“He is a wolf in sheeps clothing” is occasionally heard. According to literal meaning, “he” and “wolf” fail to have their syntactic relation; their collocation is universally accepted because in evil disposition the person and the wolf possess a slight resemblance, namely, sinisterness and ruthlessness. Besides the individual psychological nature exerts an influence on connotation to some degree. A point to make is that the nature varies from person to person, from time to time and from culture to culture. e. g. The denotation of “woman” easily elicits the connotation like a “twittering or nearsighted person ” to those who detest women, while the insulting connotation is surely rep laced by the connotation such as a “hardworking, tender or kindhearted person” to those who suggest that men and women be equal. Clearly, different people, when comprehending the connotation of the identical word, often evoke such different psychological responses that dissimilar connotative meanings of the word are formed in their mind. However, to get rid of the ambiguity of connotation, we have to draw on contexts.2. Lexical Connotation Instruction In English teaching, it is vital to sort out various connotative meanings of a word and confirm its solitary connotation in a particular context. Context is the sole determiner of connotation and classified into three types: textual context, paralinguistic context and nonlinguistic context. 2.1Textual Context Textual context is commonly utilized to determine and comprehend the exclusive precise connotation. Precisely speaking, teachers carry out their English teaching by three analytical procedures, i.e, first by the frame of words and juxtaposed words, then by the paragraph and the discourse or utterance related to the connotation and finally by the culture connected to the connotation, which helps form a specific context often giving a hint which is used to determine the exact and clear cut connotation. e. g. Textual context gives us a hint that refers to a hosp ital, and then we can easily recognize and infer the sentence geared to the p lace from the following sentences subordinate to different contexts: “Your ten thirty has just been cancelled”, “The heart attack mustnt be moved” or “A coup le of room s have complained about the heart” 3 ( P353), i. e. the second sentence in which the connotation of “attack” is “danger”. If textual context doesnt furnish us with information enough to ascertain connotation, we must turn to paralinguistic context for help. 2.2 Paralinguistic Context Paralinguistic context takes an additional role in the determination of connotation. A s English is attributable to low context culture, the connotation of a word, in general term s, needs no paralinguistic context for comprehension. W hile at times it has to rely on the confirmation of paralinguistic context. e.g. . “He is a machine”, in which “machine” is a metaphor embracing such meanings as a “diligent”, “indifferent”, or “mechanical” person. However, if paralinguistic context can imply his relationship with peop le around him, such as his colleagues and neighbors, the proper connotation of“machine”is“a person who is difficult to get on with”. Paralinguistic context contains many respects such as facial expression, intonation, tones, gestures, bodily activities, occasions of communication, etc ( P83). At times, it supp lies more of information on connotation than textual context. So reminding students of knowing paralinguistic context well is helpful to increasingtheir effective understanding of the precise connotation. 2.3Nonlinguistic Context In English teaching, some native words, unparticular, culture loaded words, are understood not by textual context or paralinguistic context but by nonlinguistic context. Nonlinguistic context refers to culture and its relevant social settings which somewhat affiliate with and affect a discourse or utterance but are not recorded in the written form ( P86). Culture is divided into two types: one is formal culture and the other is common culture.(1) Formal Culture. Formal culture is familiar to those who are exposed to this cultural environment from early childhood on but unfamiliar to those who grow up beyond the cultural environment. Thanks to the distinction between cultural diversity, the connotation of words with the same conceptual meaning arising in different cultures are constantly differential, even controversial and adverse. e. g. . In the Chinese culture the peacock is the symbol of nobility and auspiciousness, whereas in Western culture it is that of arrogance and vanity. If employed to denote the Chinese connotation in transculture communication, undoubtedly, it falls into a pragmatic error, triggering the discontent of participants in communication. As the connotation of culture loaded words is a manifestation of the languages cultural trait, we, in English teaching, should emphasize the exploration and explanation of unique words like “peacock”. We can perform our teaching by dividing them into three types: the first type deals with words which share the same concept and similar connotation such as wolf and lamb, the second is concerned with words which have the same concept but the distinct connotation like willow and bat and the third is apropos of words whose concept is the same but whose connotation is lost either in English or in Chinese ( P44), e. g. crane and bamboo. By comparing with similarities and disparities of culture loaded words between English and Chinese, we can acquaint students with a fund of knowledge of culture pertinent to English speaking countries, cultivating their inter culture awareness and improving their English.(2) Common Culture Like formal culture, common culture occupies a significant role in determining and comprehending connotation and it is closely linked to every aspect of the life of people in the community, which ranges from clothing, food, shelter and work to recreation and other human activities. Owing to cultural differences, culture shock inevitably arises among people from different cultures, which greatly affects interpersonal communication, constantly provoking inter culture misunderstanding and discontent. A case in point is “Have you eaten?”. The sentence is often uttered in the Chinese culture, which is used to express a friendly way of greeting others, in which the connotation of “eat” is “greeting”. But in the Western culture, the sentence is utilized to invite somebody to dinner at any time, in which the connotation of “eat” is “invite”. In context free situations, the connotation of “eat”, in the Chinese culture and the Western culture, may include“solute”,“greet”or”invite”etc. However, when used during mealtime, the connotation of the word is vastly different between the Chinese culture and the Western culture; in the former it still stands for “solute”, but in the latter for“invite”. In a broad sense, learning a language signifies learning a culture, especially the common culture constituting part of the culture.Therefore, the acquisition of cultures doubtless facilitates the determination of a words connotation andthe height of crossculture communication in English.(3) Acquisition of Cultures. In English instruction, it behooves teachers to consciously instruct the cultures relevant to texts or conversations. As formal culture is stipulated evidently, students are in a position to know it well by reading concerned English or Chinese books. However, common culture, since it is not prescribed clearly, is acquired with great difficulty. For this reason, teachers should first exp lain to students more about the common culture related to texts or conversations. Then, instructors are supposed to encourage learners to obtain it by extensive reading English materials like newspapers, and by mass media such as radio, the Internet, etc. Additionally, students should be urged to seize every opportunity to communicate with native speakers from English speaking countries. Next, students should be offered a period of teaching time to discuss in group work the differences and similarities between foreign cultures and the Chinese culture; teachers can join in. The students, if familiar with ritual expressions used at a ball in English speaking countries, should know to convey “Will you accept my arm s?”, in which the connotation of “arm ” is “inviting somebody to dance”. Finally, instructors necessitates a summary on students views, which help s give them a deep impression on the intercultural differences and contributes to their gradual acquisition of cultures. A s has been mentioned above, we, in English teaching, should make amp le use of a particular context to determine the connotation of a word and to catch the precise meaning of the word from its numerous connotative meanings; in the meantime we ought to teach students the knowledge regarding the culture related to texts or conversations, which helps studentscomprehension of connotation.参考文献 : 1 陆国强. 现代英语词汇学 M . 上海 :上海外语教育出版社 , 1983. 2 周方珠. 翻译多元论 M . 北京 :中国对外翻译出版公司 , 004. 3 杰弗里 ·N·利齐. 语义学 M . 上海 :上海外语教育出版社 , 1985. 4 何兆熊. 新编语用学概要 M . 上海 :上海外语教育出版社 , 1999.