English Context Study And English Reading Comprehension

With the development of applied linguistics and functional teaching approach, the linguists have become more and more interested in thepractical use of language —— pragmatics. Context is the most importantnotion in pragmatic study, it has been the basis of proper understanding of language, and it contributes a lot to the interpretation and production of meaning."Context" was first put forward by Malinowski in 1923, he argues that utterances and situation are bound up inextricably with each other and the context of situation is indispensable for the understanding of words. After him, many other scholars also probe into this field, such as Hymes, Lyons and Firth, etc.. Although context has been intensively studied for years, there are still many theoretical and practical problems remaining unsolved.This thesis, on the basis of a general study of many scholars' researches, especially two important theories: Relevance Theory and the Theory of Adaptation, and the dynamic properties of context as well, tentatively classifies context into linguistic context and non-linguistic context, and discusses them together with reading comprehension, which, to some extent, is useful for students who learn English.