英汉词义精确性及其对语境的依赖

一般认为英语的词义多而灵活,词义确定对上下文的依赖性较大,而汉语词义精确固定,对上下文依赖小。但通过对英汉语词的概念化分析和对所依赖的语境的具体分析,本文发现,英语对事物的概念化程度较高,对事物描写的专职词多而细,形态性语言标志和严谨的句法结构对词义的约束力大,这些因素使得英语词义反而相对独立精确,受语境的约束较小。

It is believed that the meanings of an English word are more polydemic and hence heavily dependent on its context,while those of a Chinese word,less dependent on the context,are more exact.The analysis of lexical conceptualization and different kinds of contexts an English word and a Chinese word depend,however,reveals that with higher conceptualization and the control of lexical meaning by its inflectional system and syntactic structure,an English word is less context-dependent and more exact in meaning.