Variation Of Meaning In Cultural Context

Language is the most important communicative tool of the society. Human beings uselanguage to think and deliver information in society. We cannot understand what aperson says, if we haven't learnt the language. Contemporary linguists break throughthe limitation that phonetic, lexicon and grammar are three essential factors oflanguage. They believe that language is considered as the system of arbitrary vocalsymbols used for human communication. People cannot do the study on semanticswithout context. In recent years, the study on context has developed very fast and hasbecome one of the most favorable topics in linguistics. This dissertation attempts toinvestigate the influence of cultural context on variation of meaning.Part One is a brief introduction to the main content and viewpoint of this thesis.Part Two reviews the developing process of context and the contemporary situation ofthe study on context.Part Three mainly introduces the concept, the classification of context, therelationship between context and language and the relationship between context andmeaning.Part Four introduces cultural context in details. It includes some information ofculture and language, the relationship between culture and language, the concept andthe classification of cultural context.Part Five investigates the relationship between context and the variation of meaning:context determines the variation of meaning in some sense, while meaning reflectscontext. The origin of the term China is taken as an example. Types of meaning andthe variation of meaning are as well introduced.