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Correlation between context and language at a high delicate level: taking Chinese emotion 喜欢 as an example

  • Yingyu Wang

    Yingyu Wang received her PhD in English Language and Literature from Beijing Normal University and is currently a lecturer at Shanghai Maritime University. Her research interests include Functional Linguistics and Textual Linguistics.

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Published/Copyright: February 16, 2022

Abstract

In systemic functional linguistics, a delicate system of context is necessary for providing specific and checkable criteria for language choice. However, due to the complexity and vastness of the context system, little work has been undertaken for its extension, which results in a general and loose interpretation of the correlation between context and language. This study seeks to fill this gap by anchoring itself at a specific contextual domain concerning social conventions on emotion, namely the system of emotion. The correlation is addressed from two perspectives: a top-down perspective to explore how three crucial emotional features are realized via the selections from two linguistic systems, namely speech function and appraisal, and a bottom-up perspective to reveal the value construed by the realizational patterns for each feature. From a selected data corpus of modern Chinese novels, 8 realizational patterns are found, based on which the value systems of the emotional features are constructed; the Resonance Hypothesis is proposed to explain the process of correlation. The findings suggest that a delicate context system can explicitly demonstrate the correlation between context and language, thus theoretically strengthening their tie.


Corresponding author: Yingyu Wang 瑛宇 王, Department of English (Shipping), College of Foreign Languages, Shanghai Maritime University, Haigang Avenue, 1550, Zip Code: 201306, Shanghai, China, E-mail:

About the author

Yingyu Wang 瑛宇 王

Yingyu Wang received her PhD in English Language and Literature from Beijing Normal University and is currently a lecturer at Shanghai Maritime University. Her research interests include Functional Linguistics and Textual Linguistics.

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Received: 2020-06-13
Accepted: 2022-01-31
Published Online: 2022-02-16
Published in Print: 2022-11-25

© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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