Utterance

话段

A term used in linguistics and phonetics to refer to a stretch of speech about which no assumptions have been made in terms of linguistic theory (as opposed to the notion of sentence, which receives its definition from a theory of grammar). In principle, it is a physically definable, behavioural unit, capable of definition in everyday terms. One commonly used definition refers to a ‘stretch of speech preceded and followed by silence or a change of speaker’. But it has proved very difficult to construct a satisfactory definition. The definition just given, for instance, applies equally to a one-word response and a sermon, and attempts have been made to produce a more restricted definition, using such features as pause, rhythm, breath patterns, pitch movement, etc. The analogous term in the study of writing is text.

语言学和语音学用来指语言学理论未作任何假设的一个言语片断（与句子的概念对立，句子由一种语法理论定义）。大体上讲话段是一个物理上可定义的行为单位，可以用日常语言来定义。一个常用定义是“前后有一个无声阶段或发生说话人转换的一个言语片段”。但实际上要作出一个令人满意的定义已被证明十分困难。例如上述定义既适用于一个词的回答也适用于一次布道。有人试图用停顿、节奏、呼吸型式、音高变化等特征作出更明确的定义。书面语研究中的类似术语是篇章。