文档介绍：Unit 8
Social Meaning
Social meaning is that which a piece of language conveys about the social circumstances of its use. In part, we decode the social meaning of a text through our recognition of different dimensions and levels of style within the same language.
connotative
affective
associative meaning reflected
social
collocative
We recognize some words or pronunciations as being dialectal, . as telling us something of the geographical or social origin of the speaker.
Other features of language tell us something of the social relationship between the speaker and hearer; we have a scale of status usage, for example, descending from formal and literary English at one end to colloquial, familiar, and eventually slang English at the other.
Variation according to:
Dialect (the language of geographical region or of a social class)
Time (the language of the eighteenth century, etc.)
Province (language of law, of
science, of advertising, etc.)
Status (polite, colloquial, slang, etc. )
Singularity (the style of Dickens, of Hemingway, etc.)
Variation according to Dialect: 不同的词汇表示同种语义:
British English Singapore English
Majority Ground
Hit Box
Holiday Off
Switch off Close
Turn on Open
Chaffing dish Steamboat
Stamp Chop
Decorator Contractor
Porridge:
Singapore English:
A bowl of plain or savoury rice gruel, which can be cooked with small pieces of meat or fish
British English:
a thick, sticky food made from oats cooked in water or milk, or to which sugar is added
Mutton chop
Singapore English:
Chopped-up lumps of meat with no
bone
British English:
Pieces of bone with meat attached