Advice for East Asian Countries’ English Teaching under the Perspective of Lexical Pragmatics— Taking Modern Family as examples

Abstract

Though there were sufficient lexical analyses and Pragmatics analyses, researches based on Lexical pragmatics are not enough as it involves the combination of written meaning of text and extended meaning based on context in particular situations. Subsequently, more teaching methods are required for ESL in East Asian countries who aims at communication with native English speakers in cultures where English is the first language. This paper focused on the lexical pragmatics analysis of an episode of Modern Family, a popular American sitcom in which characters’ lines were used to create humor successfully. Aspects in lexical pragmatics including narrowing, broadening and figurative speeches such as metaphor and puns are used for research in this paper. In addition, teaching methods, such as adding English conversation practice and corresponding criteria were proposed for high level ESL in East Asian countries. This paper could help broaden creative mind for English teachers for second language learners to improve teaching quality.