Structure and context in College English learning

【Abstract】 since the birth of structuralist linguistics in the early 20th century， people have never stopped studying the structure of language.In the later history of western linguistics， almost all linguistic theories are hard to get rid of the brand of structuralism.This paper attempts to analyze the language structure and context from a diachronic perspective in order to reveal the internal language structure and external context factors in College English learning and optimize college English teaching.

【Key words】College English; Structure; context

【作者簡介】王培宁，广西师范大学外国语学院2017级英语专业。

1. Deconstruction of “structure” and highlighting of context

In the 19th century， historical comparative linguistics dominated.Linguists set up language families and make judgments on the origin of these languages by comparing the phonetic， morphological， tortuous changes and grammatical structures of various languages in different periods.On the basis of practice， they also drew the genealogical tree of Indo European.

Saussure thinks that the whole language is a system composed of these symbols and their combination rules. Language has a unique relationship structure， and individual units of each language are not independent.During this period， the object of language research gradually became clear： not only the organization and internal system of language in the speech system， but also the geographical expansion of speech and the split context of dialect.His faithful successor is American descriptive linguistics， represented by Bloomfield.Linguists in this period conducted a large number of empirical investigations， relying on empirical induction and observation of linguistic phenomena to describe and analyze the form of language structure.They think that human language behavior is the repeated practice of sentence structure.

To sum up， in different stages of linguistic development， linguists have different interpretations of structure， but their interpretations of structural concepts are consistent.First， as a whole system， structure is composed of many elements according to a certain mode; structure reflects the relationship between the elements.Secondly， there are similarities and differences between one structure and other structures.The potential meaning in the concrete use of language is realized by context.So context is a part of meaning and a deeper structure.

2. Learning a foreign language in context

One of the first principles to be considered in English teaching is to provide students with the opportunity to practice using the target language in the actual situations they may encounter in the future.It is necessary for students to master the target language structure， but it is not enough. They also need to be proficient in the use of language in specific context.Through the above analysis， it is not difficult to find that with the in-depth study of the word “structure”， the connotation of the word “structure” has moved from the explicit external structure form to a deeper meaning relationship.Although the importance of context has been put forward by the predecessors for a long time， in the current college English teaching activities， people pay more attention to the dominant structure of language - language form， and still pay less attention to the language meaning in the specific context.The purpose of emphasizing context is to guide students to pay more attention to the semantic level in the process of understanding language.First of all， different grammatical structures reflect different functional meanings， and the same language forms appear in different text contexts， so their meanings are different. Moreover， the abstract meaning in the intuitive expression and specific language environment， is bound to enhance the memory and understanding of students.

3. Conclusion

People pay more and more attention to the traditional language form， the surface phonetic structure and deep semantic structure which are not affected by the context and have the rules of transformation and generation， and the meaning of living and using language.The structure in linguistics is the relationship between the elements that make up a language， including not only the real grammatical structure， but also the implicit context that embodies the grammatical meaning.Although the context is vague and unpredictable， it is of great significance for learning college English.In the study of language， structure and contextual meaning are relative， and there is inevitably a collision between the real and the virtual.However， in the process of College English learning， if learners can integrate language structure learning into specific context， it can greatly promote college English learning， improve communication ability， and ultimately achieve the goal of optimizing teaching.