文章论述了John Sinclair的短语理论及其核心概念,探讨了Sinclair对意义研究的主要贡献以及在意义研究上存在的主要不足。Sinclair的意义研究成果可以归结为短语理论,该理论以短语项和词项为核心,扩展意义单位模型涉及的意核、搭配、类联接、语义倾向和语义韵等核心概念既适合描写词项,也适合描写短语项。Sinclair对意义研究的主要贡献体现在三个方面:一是实现了从关注语境到关注共文的转变;二是发展和完善了KWIC索引分析,形成了扩展意义单位分析模型;三是勾勒出了短语理论的框架,为意义研究做好了理论准备。Sinclair在意义研究上的主要局限体现在两个方面:一是由于语义韵所指的模糊性,扩展意义单位模型还没有得到最好的利用;二是还没有将释义提升到应有的位置,意义研究没有真正体现出使用者的意义。

This paper aims to discuss John Sinclair's phrase theory and its key concepts, his major contributions to the study of meaning, and the inadequacies as well. It is argued that Sinclair's major achievements in the study of meaning can be attributed to his phrase theory, that its core components are phraseological items and lexical items, that his model of extended unit of meaning, consisting of core, collocation, colligation, semantic preference and semantic prosody, can be applied to the description of both lexical items and phraseological items. Sinclair's major contributions to the study of meaning include that to a great extent he turned the linguists' attention from context to cotext, that he developed and improved the KWIC analysis, upon which the model of extended unit of meaning was formulated, that he put forward the theoretical framework of his phrase theory, getting theoretically ready for the study of meaning. The inadequacies are that the notion of semantic prosody is still vague, preventing the model of extended unit of meaning from being fully exploited, and that paraphrase has not been theoretically evaluated, resulting in language users' meaning not being reflected in his study of meaning.