To Determine the Meaning and Reference with the Help of Context in Discourse Analysis

In a sense,discourse analysis is similar to pragmatics because pragmatics studies the use of language in context while the activity of analyzing discourse is based on the context. When the discourse analyst analyzes the discourse,he has to take account of the context in which a piece of discourse occurs. Some of the most obvious linguistic elements require contextual information for their interpretation. With the help of context, the meaning and reference can be determined and the ambiguity caused by the lexical polysemy and homonymy can also be eliminated;besides that,context can also infer the implica-ture caused by speakers who disobey Grice's cooperative principles purposely in communication.