摘要

话语双方在交流的时候，听者不仅要知道话语的表面含义，而且要根据当时的语境分析和理解其内在的含义。语境在语篇理解中有非常重要的作用。自从波兰人类学家Malinowski 在1923年提出语境的概念以来，越来越多的学者对其感兴趣，并在不同方面的研究中做出了许多贡献。
本篇论文中，在回顾前辈学者对语境所作研究的发展情况的基础了，我们用语用学的方法研究语境的作用，探讨了语境的定义分类；同时，阐述了运用语境的四个方法：参考、假定、暗示和推断。此外，着重分析语境的两个主要功能——限制功能和解释功能。最后，简要总结全文，指出课题的研究意义和不足之处。

关键词：语境；作用；基本方法；语篇

Abstract

In order to understand what the speaker says completely, the listener should not only know the literal meaning, but also acquire and analyze the implied according to the context. Context plays a great role in the interpretation of a discourse. Since the Polish anthropologist Malinowski put forward the concept of “context” in 1923, scholars have had increasing interest in it and they have done many researches into different aspects of it. And they made great contributions to researches of context.
  In this thesis, the author reviews the study of predecessors about context, and  studies the function of context in pragmatic approach. At the same time, the author discusses the nature of context and gives a definition. Then the author discusses the classification of context, the basic ways of understanding context, reference, presupposition, implicature, inference and two main functions of context, interpretative function and restrictive function. And at the end of the essay come some conclusions, and some comments are made on the value and the limitation of this thesis.

Key words: context; function; basic ways; discourse

1. Introduction
1.1 My approach and purpose in this thesis

Context refers to what comes before and after a word, phrase, statement, etc. helping to fix the meaning; or referring to circumstances in which an event occurs. (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English with Chinese Translation, 4th edition, 1994) We can also call it “communication field”. In the speech communication, only when the speaker and hearer link to each other conditionally and organize a communication field, can the talk develop frequently and effectively. During the process of the whole communication, some objective factors such as time, place, situation, the person you talking with can influence the communication, so do the subjective factors such as the status, occupation, mood, character. Context plays a great role both in the production and the interpretation of communication. In this thesis we will study its function in discourse interpretation.