下文選自上海外語教育出版社出版的《英語閱讀技巧教學》（Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language，作者Christine Nuttall）第二章「Text and discourse 文本和話語」。
選文翻譯：武太白
Four kinds of meaning
四種意義
In order to investigate how sentences combine to produce discourse, we will look at the kinds of meaning a single sentence may have. There are at least four, which sometimes we must distinguish. Let us use a very short text to clarify this.
為弄明白句子是怎樣結合起來產生話語的，我們來看看單獨的一個句子可能有的幾種意義。至少有四種，有時我們必須對其進行區分。我們來用一個很短的句子說明這一點。
You should not expel my son just because he has failed. Examination results can be misleading.
We will examine how this text embodies each kind of meaning: conceptual, propositional, contextual and pragmatic.
我們來考察一下，這一小段文字是怎樣代表了下面各種類型的意義：概念意義、命題意義、語境意義和語用意義。
Conceptual meaning: the meaning a word can have on its own
概念意義：一個詞自身能夠具備的意思
Concepts can be found at any level, from a whole text down to a single morpheme. Every lexical item embodies a concept, sometimes simple (eg son), sometimes complex (eg should). Whole books are written on complex concepts such as probability or truth. Others can be expressed by the smallest meaning units, such as the concept of plurality, commonly expressed in English by the suffix -s (eg results).
概念存在於各個層次，從整篇文章到單個詞素都有。每一個詞彙項目都代表著一個概念，有時簡單（如son 兒子），有時複雜（如should）。對於「概率」、「真理」這樣的複雜概念，已有整本整本的著作來談論。其他的概念可以用最小的意義單元來表達，比如複數的概念，英語中通常以後綴-s的形式來表達（比如results）。
All other kinds of linguistic meaning rest on conceptual meaning. Making a text normally involves putting concepts together to form propositions, which are then put together into larger units which in turn combine to constitute the whole text.
所有其他種類的語言意義都以概念意義為基礎。形成文本正常情況下需要把概念結合起來形成命題，命題又進一步結合起來形成更大的單位，這些更大的單位接著又結合到一起，形成整個文本。
Propositional meaning: the meaning a sentence can have on its own
命題意義：一個句子自身能夠具備的意思
This is also known as signification or plain sense. It is the meaning a clause or sentence can have even if it is not being used in a context. A word on its own, eg misleading, carries no propositional meaning; we cannot affirm it, deny it, question it. But as soon as the word is put into a proposition, these operations become possible:
這也稱為「表面意思」，或者「明顯的意思」。這就是一個分句或一個句子即便沒有在上下文中使用的時候也能具備的意思。一個詞自身，比如misleading，是沒有命題意義的；我們沒法肯定、否定、質疑這個詞。但只要這個詞放入命題中，這些操作就變成了可能：
Examination results are misleading.
We can now deny the proposition (Examination results are not misleading), doubt it, question it and so on.
現在我們可以否定這個命題（Examination results are not misleading），對其加以質疑，如此等等。
This is the meaning that is common to every occurrence of a sentence, irrespective of context, and (with rare exceptions) the only kind of meaning a sentence can have when it is cited without a context (as we have just cited the sentence about examination results). (But, as we shall see, even to understand the plain sense, we usually need to understand the context.)
命題意義是每一個句子都具備的一種意義，不管有沒有上下文，並且（除了個別情況以外）在整個句子被脫離上下文加以引用時仍然具備的唯獨一種意義（就比如我們剛剛引用的關於考試結果的那個句子）。（但是，如同我們將要看到的那樣，即便是要理解「明顯的意思」，我們通常也需要理解上下文。）
Contextual meaning: the meaning a sentence can have only when in context
語境意義：只有在上下文中一個句子才會具備的意義
This is also known as force, or functional value. As soon as a sentence is used in a context, it takes on a value derived from the writer's reason for using it, and from the relationship between it and the other sentences in the same text. For instance, in our example text (p20), the proposition Examination results can be misleading has the force of an explanation or justification of the claim that expulsion would be wrong.
這也稱為「效力」，或曰「功能價值」。句子一旦被用於上下文中，它就有了價值，這種價值來自於作者使用這個句子的原因，也來自該句和同一文本中其他句之間的關係。例如，在我們的例文中，「Examination results are not misleading」這個命題就有著對「開除是錯誤的」這一觀點加以解釋和辯護的效力。
Explaining, justifying and so on are often called rhetorical acts (or speech acts). In a text, they are sequenced and organized into patterns conveying the writer's thoughts. We shall return to this rhetorical organization later.
解釋、辯護等常被稱為「修辭行為」（或曰「言語行為」）。在文本中，這些行為被加以排序，組織為種種類型，傳達的是作者的想法。後面我們再談這種修辭組織。
Interpreting contextual meaning is crucial to effective reading; it is no use understanding the plain sense of a sentence if we cannot work out why the writer said it and how it connects with the rest of the text. I shall say more about this later in the chapter, and especially in Chapter 7.
解釋語境意義對於有效閱讀來說是至關重要的；如果我們弄不懂作者為什麼要說一個句子，這個句子和文本的其餘部分又有怎樣的連接，那麼理解「明顯的意思」也是沒用的。對此，本章稍後會進一步探討，然後第七章中會特別談到。
Pragmatic meaning: the meaning a sentence has only as part of the interaction between writer and reader
語用意義：一個句子只有在作為作者和讀者之間互動的一部分的時候才會具備的意義
This last kind of meaning is not always easily distinguished from contextual meaning. It is the meaning that reflects the writer's feelings, attitudes and so on, and her intention in setting these down to be read. It therefore includes the intended effect of the utterance on the reader.
這最後一種意義跟上下文意義並不總是那麼容易分辨清楚。這種意義反映的是作者的感情、態度等，及其在寫下這些東西供人閱讀時的意圖所在。因而，語用意義包含了作者意圖中言語應對讀者起到的作用。
Let us return to the sample text on p20. Suppose a mother utters this to the headteacher who is proposing to expel her son. If the head responded only to the propositional meaning of the second sentence (Examination results can be misleading), he might reply How true! But the mother clearly intends the remark as a plea or protest, to which the head has not replied at all. In any normal conversation, his reply would be construed as a sarcastic way of refusing to discuss the matter. If the head did not mean to be offensive, he has got the pragmatics badly wrong.
我們回到例文。假定是一位母親對提出要開除她兒子的校長說這段話。如果校長進隊第二句話(Examination results can be misleading)的命題意義作出回應，他可能會回答說「真對呀！」但是這位母親明顯是把這句話當成一種請求，或者一種抗議，對此校長完全沒有回應。在任何正常的對話中，他的回覆都會被解讀為是一種帶有諷刺的方式，來拒絕探討這個話題。如果校長不想冒犯對方，那他對語用意義的理解就錯得離譜了。
Pragmatic meaning involves interaction and can be seen most clearly in conversation. But it can also be found in texts, in the writer's interaction with the reader. We shall look at some examples later on.
語用意義牽涉到互動，可以在對話中非常清晰地看到。但語用意義也能夠在文本中找到，在作者與讀者的互動中找到。後面我們再看一些例子。
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