Research on Context-based Vocabulary Teaching in Junior High School文献综述

 2022-08-08 09:50:21

Literature Review

    1. Context Theory

One distinctive difference of The National English Curriculum in Compulsory Stage (2011 edition) lies in its “student-centered principal” that students are the real owners of the class, emphasizing studentsrsquo; autonomous learning and language use ability. Thus, context ought to be well taken into consideration when making pedagogical arrangements so that students can learn language and vocabulary more effectively, under which circumstance does context theory pull into our view.

Context theory, one of the most momentous theories in the field of pragmatics, has drawn increasing attention both from scholars abroad and at home in the past decades. It is an irresistible tendency in vocabulary teaching that English teachers have the responsibility to guide students to learn English vocabulary in various contexts, notably in the real-life contexts, which not only can make sure their center role during the learning process, but also stimulate their interest and motivation in learning vocabulary. In this section, definitions of context and classifications of context are presented respectively.

Definitions of Context

Despite the fact that an increasing number of scholars worldwide have done tremendous researches and studies on context, in the field of linguistics, there still exists no standard definition for context. Definitions of context vary from scholar to scholar.

Malinowski (1923) is widely believed by the circle of linguistics to be the first man who put forward the terminology of “context”. Malinowski (1923) initiated the term “context of situation” (situation when it is uttered) when he made an additional recording for the book The Meaning of Meaning, realizing the importance of context on utterance. Malinowski (1935) incorporated the terminology “context of situation” into “context of culture” (culture made up by background knowledge from mutual social systems and ideology) so as to complement and enrich the meaning of “context”, for he held that “it was one-sided to understand words or sentences in isolation, which could easily lead to inaccuracy even misunderstanding”. Malinowskirsquo;s ideas of context are commonly regarded as the origin of context-based study by modern linguistics.

Firth constructed the context theory of meaning (1957) on the basis of Malinowskirsquo;s research on “context of situation”, in which he argued that “context of situation consisted of two major factors—the situational context and the linguistic context”. He held the view that “if a language signal could help to convey part of the meaning of speech, it could be considered meaningful”(Firth, 1957).

Halliday further explored context of situation into a more sophisticated system and came up with the terminology of “register” (1964), which is consisted of three variables of contextual figuration: mode of discourse, tenor of discourse and field of discourse. He firmly believed that “register theory could assist people to reveal the basic rules governing these variations” (Halliday, 1964).

Hymes made a systematic research on contextual variables, promoting the development of context theory as well. He creatively intertwined the language and competence together and initiated S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G model (1972), which respectively symbolized setting, participant, ends, act sequence, setting, key, instrumentalities, norms of interaction and genre. Hymes (1972) also claimed that “the key of understanding the language in context was to start from the context instead of starting from language” (Hymes, 1972). Hence, it is Hymes who raised the importance of context to an unprecedented level.

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