Abstract: Language is the most important tool for people to interact with each other. The listener and speaker can only communicate freely and understand the intension of one’s words when in an appropriate context. Context has an effect on the way people formulating their linguistic messages and it is clear that utterances should be suitable to a specific context. This paper aims to analyze some dialogues in Shaw’s drama Pygmalion from a contextual perspective. The first part is an introduction, which includes both the status of context and scenario of the drama. The second part introduces the development of the theory of context and the importance of context, and the categories of context will also be discussed. The third part analyzes drama dialogues from the perspective of situational context and cultural context. The final part is a conclusion. The thesis shows the role of context in utterance interpretation and that a speaker’s speech of act is affected by a specific context, which highlights the importance of context in communication. |
