Correlation between context and language at a high delicate level: taking Chinese emotion 喜欢 as an example

Abstract In systemic functional linguistics, a delicate system of context is necessary for providing specific and checkable criteria for language choice. However, due to the complexity and vastness of the context system, little work has been undertaken for its extension, which results in a general and loose interpretation of the correlation between context and language. This study seeks to fill this gap by anchoring itself at a specific contextual domain concerning social conventions on emotion, namely the system of emotion. The correlation is addressed from two perspectives: a top-down perspective to explore how three crucial emotional features are realized via the selections from two linguistic systems, namely speech function and appraisal, and a bottom-up perspective to reveal the value construed by the realizational patterns for each feature. From a selected data corpus of modern Chinese novels, 8 realizational patterns are found, based on which the value systems of the emotional features are constructed; the Resonance Hypothesis is proposed to explain the process of correlation. The findings suggest that a delicate context system can explicitly demonstrate the correlation between context and language, thus theoretically strengthening their tie.