Part 8
Meaning and Context As most words have more than one meaning, it is often impossible to tell the meaning of a word before it is used in context. Context is very important for the understanding of word­meaning because the meaning is influenced immediately by the linguistic context, and in many cases by the whole speech situation as well. When a writer or speaker uses a word, s/he makes it 'mean just what he chooses it to mean 'neither more nor less.' Without context, there is no way to determine the very sense of the word that the speaker intended to convey; whereas with context there is generally no danger of misinterpretation, for meaning lives in context and the context defines meaning. This chapter will discuss the relationship between meaning and context and the way in which context affects the meaning of words. 8.1 Types of Context Context is used in different senses. In a narrow sense, it refers to the words, clauses, sentences in which a word appears. This is known as linguistic context which may cover a paragraph, a whole chapter and even the entire book. In a broad sense, it includes the physical situation as well. This is called extra­linguistic or non­linguistic context, which embraces the people, time, place, and even the whole cultural background. 8.1.1 Extra­linguistic Context When we talk about context, we usually think of linguistic context, hardly aware of the non­linguistic situation, which can often exercise greater influence on the meaning of words than we realize. Brown and Yule invented two situations to illustrate the effect on the meaning of the word quick: 1. speaker: a young mother, hearer: her mother­in­law, place: park, by a duckpond, time: sunny afternoon in September 1962. They are watching the young mother's two­year­old son chasing ducks and the mother­in­law has just remarked that her son, the child's father, was rather backward at this age. The young mother says: I do think Adam's quick. 2. speaker: a student, hearer: a set of students, place: sitting around a coffee table in the refectory, time: evening in March 1980. John, one of the group, has just told a joke. Everyone laughs except Adam. Then Adam laughs. One of the students says: I do think Adam's quick. In both cases, the speaker says of Adam that he is quick. It is clear, however, that the utterance in the contexts of situation would be taken to convey very different messages. In 1) 'Adam' is compared favourably with his father. Quick can be interpreted as meaning something like 'quick in developing'. It is used in contrast to backward. In 2) 'Adam' is compared unfavourably with the set of other students. Therefore, quick must be interpreted as meaning something like 'quick to understand/ react/see the joke'. In this case, quick is used ironically to mean the opposite 'slow'. There is a funny incident about the misunderstanding of the phrase look out on the part of a tourist. When someone was ready to pour water out of the window, he called 'Look out!' to warn the
people outside to go away so as to avoid the water coming down. But the tourist thought that he was supposed to look outside so that he stretched his head out of the window just in time to receive the water. Had the tourist known what the speaker was doing, what had happened could have been prevented. Here the question is: Did the hearer misinterpret the message because he did not know the linguistic item 'look out' or because he was unaware of the context of situation? It was not actually wrong of the tourist to interpret 'look out' as look outside. Suppose the same thing was uttered by one of a group absorbed in some activity in a big room pointing to the outside of the window, it would be perfectly all right if the rest of the group raised their heads and looked out of the room. The extra­linguistic context may extend to embrace the entire cultural background, which may also affect the meaning of words. Take the term trade union for example. In western countries, a trade union is an 'organization of workers, esp. in a particular trade or profession, formed to represent their interests and deal as a group with employers'. Against this cultural background, trade unions have strong political overtones. The organisations, which are established purposefully in opposition to the management, are expected to stage constant struggle against the management and employers for say, shorter working hours, better working conditions and higher pay. The trade union leaders assume considerable power and have different duties and responsibilities. In China, however, the term has quite a different meaning. It is simply an organisation of masses under the leadership of the Party in each working unit, chiefly concerning the benefits of its members. There is no such thing as negotiation between the unions and management for higher pay or shorter working hours though unions are well in the position to make suggestions. The word landlord affords another example. In Chinese culture, landlord is usually understood as referring to someone who owned a lot of land and collected money by renting land without working. It used to be associated with 'exploitation', naturally carrying a negative overtone. In contrast, the term in western countries is denotationally different and affectively neutral. The most commonly used meaning of the word is 'someone who rents house for money.' Even a common term like weekend does not mean the same to all the people at all times. The western weekend consists of Saturday and Sunday plus Friday evening while for a long time the Chinese weekend meant only Sunday plus Saturday evening, and later it extended to be one day and half. Only starting on May 1, 1995 when the Chinese government adopted the new working system did it begin to convey the same meaning as western weekend. Look at the following words used in the Chinese context. weekend 1) one day (1980s) 2) one day and half (1995) 3) two days (1996) 4) two days and half (some places) square 1) a large flat area without buildings 2) a large building (亚贸广场；武广) city 1) a large town with more than 300,000 residents 2) 家俱城；书城
8.1.2 Linguistic Context Linguistic context can be subdivided into lexical context and grammatical context. 1. Lexical context. This context refers to the words that occur together with the word in question. The meaning of the word is often affected and defined by the neighbouring words. For instance, paper has a number of meanings in the dictionary, yet in each of the following context, it conveys only one sense. (1) a sheet of paper (thin flat sheets of substance for writing, printing, decorating walls, etc.) (2) a white paper (government document) (3) a term paper (essay written at the end of the term) (4) today's paper (newspaper) (5) examination paper (a set of questions used as an exami­nation) The same is true of all the polysemic verbs such as do. Used as a notional verb, do conveys a large number of meanings and only context will determine exactly which is meant. do a sum (work out the answer to a mathematical question) do one's teeth (brush) do the flowers (arrange) do fish (cook) do science at school (study) do a museum/a city/a country (visit) Apart from these, A car can do 80 miles an hour. John is doing well in school. I'lll do you if you don't stop. In each case, do has a different meaning. Examples like these can multiply in numbers. 2. Grammatical context. In some cases, the meanings of a word may be influenced by the structure in which it occurs. This is what we call grammatical context. Though less common, it is by no means rare. Let us consider the verb become for example. (1) become + adj/n (used as predictive), meaning 'begin to be', e.g. [42a] Daydreams have become realities. [42b] She became increasingly anxious about her husband's strange behaviour. (2) become + pronoun/n (used as object), meaning 'suit, be fit', e.g. [42c] This sort of behaviour hardly becomes a person in your position. [42d] Sarcasm doesn't become you. (3) become + of, meaning 'happen to, often in a bad way', e.g. [42e] I don't know what will become of us if the company goes bankrupt. make God made the country, man made the town. (create) She will make a good teacher. (become)
He is going to make us a report. (give) Generally speaking, the immediate verbal context, either lexical or grammatical, will suffice for interpreting meanings of a word as indicated. However, there are cases where the meaning of a word may remain a puzzle until a whole paragraph, a chapter or even a whole book is covered. For example, 'Janet! Donkeys!' does not mean much to us until we have got to know that it was the well­known remark by the hero's aunt Betsey Trotwood inDickens's David Copperfield, an order to her maid to carry out a daily task of driving donkeys off the grass. In Dickens' Dombey and Son, there is such a piece of narration: [43] " 'How goes it?' asked Captain Cuttle. " 'All well,' said Mr. Gills, pushing the bottle towards him. He took it up, and having surveyed and smelt it, said with extraordinary expression: " 'THE?' " 'THE,' returned the instrument maker. Upon that he whistled as he filled his glass, and seemed to think that they were making a holiday indeed." The word 'THE' appeared twice in the passage. But the immediate context does not contain adequate clues for the interpretation of the meaning. Dictionaries may prove of no use either. In fact, one has to read almost half of the book before coming to understand that 'THE' stands for 'Maderia', a type of strong white wine produced in the island of Maderia. 8.2 The Role of Context Having discussed the different types of context and their relative importance, now we should look into the actual functions of context. But in this section we shall confine ourselves to verbal context only. Context has two major functions: 8.2.1 Elimination of Ambiguity Ambiguity often arises due to polysemy and homonymy. When a word with multiple meanings is used in inadequate context, it creates ambiguity, e.g. [44] He is a hard businessman. The word hard in this context can mean both 'hard­working' and 'difficult'. The context fails to narrow down the meaning so that it is difficult for the reader to decide what exactly the speaker means. But there would be no misunderstanding if the original sentence is extended as 'He is a hard businessman to deal with.' Now compare the following two sentences and see the effect of context in eliminating ambiguity: [45a] John ran the egg and spoon race. [45b] John ran the egg and spoon race and won second place. The first sentence is quite ambiguous because we have no way to determine whether John 'participated' in the race or 'organised' the race as the word run can mean both. Contrastingly, the second sentence is definite and leaves us no doubt that John took part in the race personally because he
got second place. Homonymy is another cause of ambiguity as two separate words share the same form, e.g. [46] They saw her duck. [47] The ball was attractive. In each case we can make two different senses depending on our interpretation of the words duck and ball. Duck can be understood as a noun meaning a 'kind of poultry' or as a verb meaning 'lower one's head or body quickly, dodge'. Both fit in the syntactic structure of the sentence. Similarly, ball may mean a 'round object to play in a game' as well as a 'dancing party'. Grammatically, the usage is perfectly all right. This ambiguity can only be eliminated by altering the context a little as 'They saw her duck swimming in the river' in the first case or as 'The ball was attractive with nice music and a lot of people' in the second case. Grammatical structure can also lead to ambiguity, e.g. [48] The fish is ready to eat. [49] I like Mary better than Jean. On a grammatical basis, both sentences can have two different interpretations. The first sentence may mean 'The fish is cooked or served, so ready for people to eat' or 'The fish is ready to eat things.' However, in the context of 'What a nice smell! The fish is ready to eat', fish definitely means the former. The second sentence can be regarded as an elliptical one, which gives rise to ambiguity: 'I like Mary better than I like Jean or I like Mary better than Jean like Mary.' To achieve clarity, we can either say 'I like Mary better than Jean does or I like Mary better than I do Jean or I like Mary better as Jean is untidy', etc. The shooting of the hunter was horrible. (The hunter shot something in a horrible way. The hunter was shot in a horrible way.) 8.2.2 Indication of Referents English has a large number of words such as now/then, here/there, I/you, this/that, which are often used to refer directly to people, time, place, etc. Without clear context, the reference can be very confusing. For example, the word now always means the time of speaking, naturally referring to a past time when the speech took place in the past or a present moment if the person is speaking. It is the same with all referring expressions. Even a phrase like the Prime Minister may bring about ambiguity without adequate verbal context, for it can be used to refer to any of the Prime Ministers in British history.
8.2.3 Provision of Clues for Inferring Word­meaning Context may prove extremely valuable in guessing the meanings of new words. In many cases, when a new word (thought to be) appears for the first time, the author generally manages to give hints which might help the readers to grasp the concept or understand the idea. Context clues vary a great deal but can be summed up as follows:
1) Definition. Often we find that the author gives formal definition immediately after the new term, e.g. [50] Perhaps the most startling theory to come out of kinesics, the study of body movement, was suggested by Professor Bird­whistell. 2) Explanation. If the concept is complicated and must involve technical terms in its definition, the author might explain the idea in simple words. That is, he might make a restatement in known words e.g. [51] It's just one more incredible result of the development of microprocessors­­those tiny parts of a computer commonly known as 'silicon chips'. 3) Example. In some cases, instead of giving a formal definition or explanation, the author may cite an example which is sufficient to throw light on the meaning of the term, e.g. [52] Many United Nations employees are polyglots. Ms Mary, for example, speaks five languages. 4) Synonymy. Synonyms or synonymous expressions are frequently employed by authors to explain new words, e.g. [53] Their greatest fear was of a conflagration, since fire would destroy their flimsy wooden settlement before help could arrive. 5) Antonymy. Contrasting words or statements are also commonly used to explain unknown words, e.g. [54] As the fighting on all fronts reached its peak, the economy neared its nadir. 6) Hyponymy. Superordinates and subordinates often define and explain each others, thus forming an important context clue, e.g. [55] The village had most of the usual amenities: a pub, a library, a post office, a village hall, a medical centre, and a school. Of course, only by hyponyms, we may not get the exact meaning. For example, pub does not tell us exactly what amenity means, but we know at least that it belongs to the same category as the rest and this is adequate because in real situation often a general idea is sufficient. 7) Relevant details. In some contexts, the author provides details relating to the unknown word, such as the functions, characteristics, nature, etc. of the referent, e.g. [56a] 'Do get me a clop,' she said, smacking her lips, but her brother, with a scornful glance up at the branches, said that there were none ripe yet. [56b] In spite of the fact that the fishermen were wearing sou'westers, the storm was so heavy that they were wet through. In sentence [56a], though the author did not explain what clop was, yet the key words such as
smacking her lips, branches, ripe form a frame of reference for us, implying it is something eatable which can be obtained from trees when ripe. Likewise, the contextual details in sentence [56b] give sufficient hints for the word sou'wester, something worn by people in storms. The meaning becomes clear. 8) Word structure. The morphemic structure of words, especially compounds and derived words offers clues for inferring the meanings of unknown words, e.g. [57] Copernicus believed in a heliocentric universe, rather than in the geocentric theory. If we know the form geo­ as in geology or geography as well as the fact that it is used in contrast to helio­, we should not have much difficulty in guessing the meanings of heliocentric and geocentric with the help of our historical knowledge of Copernicus' contribution (See Word­formation).