（外国语言学及应用语言学专业论文）认知语境框架下的书面语篇分析.pdf

vi 摘 要 语境作为语用学的重要概念之一，已长期被应用于语言研究的各个领域。不少学者 为它的发展作出了重要贡献。传统语境观注重外部因素的作用，认为语境是一种静止的 实体，它先于交际而存在于人的大脑之中。随着认知科学的发展，人们逐渐开始尝试从 心理活动的角度对语境进行解释。1986 年斯珀伯与威尔森在交际性：关联与认知 一书中提出了以关联理论为基础的认知语境概念, 为语境研究开辟了新的思路。 本文运用认知语境理论对书面语篇的生成和理解进行分析。 交际是依赖语境而存在 的一种动态活动， 书面语篇作为作者与读者在书面交际中信息传输的媒体应该从动态的 角度进行分析。认知语境观将语境视为一种动态的心理结构体，由储存于人脑的一系列 假设构成。交际双方在交际过程中把交际内容与认知语境相结合，不断选择构建语境假 设直至交际的顺利完成。 在书面交际中， 书面语篇的生成受到作者心理图式、 写作目的、 对读者认知语境的预测等因素的影响；书面语篇的理解即读者的认知语境重构过程。然 而认知语境内容复杂， 交际者如何选择构建恰当的语境假设呢？斯珀伯与威尔森提出了 关联原则和明示-推理交际的概念。在他们看来，交际是一个明示-推理的过程。发话者 发出明示刺激，接收者将其与认知假设相结合推理出发话者的真实目的。书面交际作为 交际的一种特殊形式也属于这种模式。关联原则作为关联理论的一项重要内容，为认知 语境的重建提供了理论限制。 即在语境的选择中交际者力争以最小的努力取得最大的语 境效果。是否达到最佳关联是交际成败的关键。本文以关联理论为基础分析认知语境在 书面语篇生成和理解中的重要作用。 全文首先综述了语境的研究历史，解释了书面语篇的定义和基本特征。关联理论作 为全文的理论基础进行了详细的介绍。作为中心内容，本论文分别从书面语篇的生成和 理解两方面阐释了认知语境的重要作用。 本文认为运用具有明显优越性的认知语境分析 书面语篇有其实际意义。可以使人们对书面交际过程从心理活动层面有更深刻的了解， 这样更利于交际的顺利进行。然而文章也同时存在不足之处，作者将在今后的研究中加 以完善。 关键词：关联理论 认知语境 书面语篇 生成 理解 iv abstract as one of the important concepts in pragmatics, context has been studied in many fields for a long time. many scholars contribute a great deal to the development. of the context. traditional view of context focuses on the influence of external factors. context is regarded as a static entry which exists in human beings mind before the process of communication. with the development of cognitive science, people start to research it from the perspective of psychology. in 1986, sperber the written discourse comprehension is the process of reformulation of the readers cognitive context. however, the content of cognitive context is complex, how to select and construct the appropriate ones? in order to solve this problem, sperber addressee combines it with contextual assumptions to infer writers communicative intention. as a special form of communication, written communication can also be regarded as this form. relevant principle is the main idea of relevance theory. it governs the reformulation of cognitive context. in order to make communication succeed, the core factor is the pursuit of optimal relevance by both the participants. therefore, relevant approach to cognitive context shed a new light on v written discourse analysis. this thesis is meticulously organized. first the research history of context is reviewed and the term of written discourse is also introduced. relevance theory as the theoretical framework is introduced in detail. as the main part of this thesis, cognitive contexts functions in written discourse production and comprehension are analyzed separately. it is valuable for this thesis to do the analysis of written discourse under the superior dynamic cognitive study of context. this helps people have a further understanding about their mental activity during the process of written communication. however, there are also some limitations longing to be solved by the authors further research. key words: relevance theory cognitive context written discourse production comprehension iii 学位论文原创性声明 学位论文原创性声明 本人所提交的学位论文 “an analysis of written discourse under the cognitive context”，是在导师的指导下，独立进行研究工作所取得的原创性成果。除文中已经注 明引用的内容外，本论文不包含任何其他个人或集体已经发表或撰写过的研究成果。对 本文的研究做出重要贡献的个人和集体，均已在文中标明。 本声明的法律后果由本人承担。 论文作者（签名） ： 指导教师确认（签名） ： 年 月 日 年 月 日 学位论文版权使用授权书 学位论文版权使用授权书 本学位论文作者完全了解河北师范大学有权保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交学 位论文的复印件和磁盘，允许论文被查阅和借阅。本人授权河北师范大学可以将学位论 文的全部或部分内容编入有关数据库进行检索，可以采用影印、缩印或其它复制手段保 存、汇编学位论文。 （保密的学位论文在 年解密后适用本授权书） 论文作者（签名） ： 指导教师（签名） ： 年 月 日 年 月 日 1 chapter one introduction in order to have a macroscopic understanding about the thesis, a brief comment on the purpose, significance and structure of the whole thesis are introduced in this chapter. 1.1 purpose and significance in the 1970s, cognitive science, as a study of the activities of human beings brain, spreads in the whole world. it is a cross-discipline which consisted of many branches of learning. cognitive linguistics, as one of its branches, comes into being by combing the cognitive science with linguistics. a lot of linguists begin to analyze the function of language by using the theory of cognitive linguistics. this gives rise to another learning: cognitive pragmatics. its theoretical ground is relevance theory proposed by sperber non-linguistic context involves social cultural environment, natural environment, style environment. vice-linguistic environment of linguistic context contains the vocal environment which involves look, facial expression, color of clothes, etc. and the non-vocal environment which involves intonation, tone, pause, etc. he is the first scholar who puts the non-vocal environment into context. pei wen (2000) also makes great efforts to present context theory in her book context in modern english (pei wen, 2000), in which she classifies context into three dimensions: linguistic context, which refers to written context and spoken context and both of them are constructed by context of words and context of sentences; paralinguistic context, which refers to vocal factors (e.g. tone, intonation ) and non-vocal factors (e.g. facial expressions, body movement, gesture, mood); culture context, which refers to social life (e.g. social status) and national psychology (e.g. religious beliefs). reviewing the researches of different traditional scholars, context is regarded as an isolate and static notion. it is formed by the contextual elements which are pre-existed in human beings mind. context constrains the meaning of communication before the occurring of language events. participants of the verbal action are placed into a positive position. what the participants can do is just put the linguistic codes into the pre-existed context, using the general background knowledge to infer the meaning of communication. however, communication is a dynamic activity. it is not rational to analyze it from the static perspective. traditional scholars merely concentrate on the effects of external world and ignore the participants mental activity. communication can not carry on smoothly within the effect of this kind context. 9 2.1.2 researches on cognitive context the traditional view assumed that context for the analysis of a certain utterance is not a matter of choice: the context is viewed as monolithic and given. furthermore, the context is generally assumed to be determined in advance of the comprehension process. all the traditional scholars treat context as an isolated and static notion. this kind of researches impeded the development of context used in analysis of communication. as we know, communication is a dynamic process in essence, so the dynamic approach of context are raised by more and more scholars consequently. mey (1993) suggests some findings about context from the dynamic perception. he claims that context is a dynamic notion. as the dynamic development of conversation, context provides a clue for us to understand each other. the development can not be predicted, but determined thoroughly by individuals and their individual choices. in his book: pragmatics: an introduction (second edition), mey presents: “a context is a dynamic not a static concept it is to be understood as the continually changing surroundings, in the widest sense, that enable the participants in the communication process interact, and in which their linguistic expressions of their interaction become intelligible.” (mey 2001:40) verschueren (2000) discusses about the production of context in his book: understanding pragmatics (verschueren 2000). he firmly rejects that the context is determined beforehand. on the contrary, he points that the context is produced in the process of utterance events by the participants. ron scollon and suzanne scollon also claim context is a dynamic notion, and they mention that with the development of communication, context will change, especially shared knowledge of participants will enlarge continuously. d. sperber and d. wilson, two american linguists, do a great contribution on the development of context. their book: relevance: communication and cognition，which is pressed in 1986 makes a hit in the pragmatic field. the co-authors first lay their research of context from the perspective of relevance theory. with the combination of code model and inferential model, s and provides us with a means of examining below the surface of discourse and probing the surface relation of forms as well as basic relations of functions and acts. grice (1975), levinson (1979) and leech (1983) analyze discourse from the perspective of social linguistics. they regard utterance event as social action and probe how the speaker/writer observes or violates conversation maxims, how they ask the hearer/reader to infer their meanings from the language uttered and how social factors act in communication. based on firth (1957) and malinowskis research, halliday (1978) takes a functional approach to language study and he analyzes discourse under the framework of his systemic functional grammar. according to hallidays theory, discourse has been analyzed from many aspects such as: discourse information structure analysis, discourse cohesion analysis, discourse type analysis, grammar metaphor analysis, register analysis and so on. the release of handbook of discourse analysis which is written by van dijk in 1985 is a great event in the history of discourse study. it indicates that discourse analysis as a new cross-disciplinary has constructed its independent system. discourse analysis as an independent system is the product of not only linguistic study, but also other fields of research, particularly psychology, anthropology and psychotherapy. with the development of cognitive science, it is also concentrated by cognitive linguists. although there are still lots of limitations in their studies, cognitive approach shed a new light to discourse analysis. 18 chapter three theoretical framework relevance theory, as the theoretical framework of this thesis, is described in this chapter. the central content of relevance theory is its definition and principle. besides that, the relationship between cognitive context and relevance theory; and the relationship between cognitive context and ostensive-inferential communication are also separately introduced in this chapter. 3.1 relevance theory 3.1.1 description of relevance theory with the rapid development of cognitive linguistics, cognitive context is gradually drawing more and more attentions in the field of cognitive pragmatics. it provides us with a new method and perspective for the studies of written discourse analysis. relevance theory, proposed by sperber and the communicative principle that every act of ostensive communication communicates a presumption of its own optimal relevance (sperber it puts the hearer to no gratuitous processing effort in achieving those effects. (wilson, 1994:47) in order to achieve the expected effects, it is important to draw the audiences attention. a successful ostensive communication demands audience participant with the proper cognitive behavior and particular attention which comply with communicators communicative intention. that is to say, in ostensive communication, the ostensive stimulus manifested by communicator, must have some relevance to the recipient, or at least be assumed to be so. therefore, every act of ostensive communication communicates a presumption of relevance automatically. the relevance of ostensive stimulus is constrained by the effort needed to make it optimal, and cognitive effects achieved through the optimal process. from the perspective of effect, it is presumed that the degree of achieved effects is never less than required to be worth the audiences attention. from the perspective of processing effort, it is presumed that the demanded effort is never more than required to achieve these cognitive effects. sperber it ends when the readers have comprehend the writers intended meaning which is relevant to them as much as possible by inference. therefore, relevance-theoretical approach to cognitive context shed new light on written communication. 27 chapter four cognitive context and written discourse production the production of written discourse is a systematic information processing behavior. cognitive context plays an important role in it. based on the relevance theory, this chapter primarily introduces the function of the writer and readers cognitive context in written discourse production 4.1 relevance theory and written discourse production van dijk (1977) claims that discourse can not be regarded as an abstract and isolated linguistic variant. if we want to have an overall analysis of discourse, it is necessary for us to connect it to context. relevance theory put forward by s conversely, the explicit expression should be used, because in this case it is hard for readers to choose the relevant assumptions and only the explicit stimulus given by the writer can help them to achieve the relevant contextual effects. let us taking another example: 35 (19) the american dream does not come to those who fall asleep. in this sentence, both the “american dream” and “fall asleep” are implicit expressions. there is cultural background knowledge of american dream. california is full for foreign immigrants who came to the us to share the american dream, a popular belief that hard work will bring forth americas bounty in the form of material well-being. “american dream” here implies a kind of beautiful desirability. “fall asleep” refers to the people who are too lazy to do anything. the whole sentence intends to express that people who are lazy can not achieve their beautiful desirability. as for the readers who have not the background knowledge of american culture, the sentence is hard to be understood. a writer has to supplement some necessary explicit expressions to guide readers to achieve the relevant effects. however, to readers who are familiar with american culture and have the cognitive competence to understand the implied meaning of “fall asleep”, the sentence is enough for them to achieve the optimal relevant effects with least effort. cognitive context is manipulated with the basic units of knowledge of scrip and cognitive schema. peoples cognitive schema is usually formed from the low level to the high level, from the concrete level to abstract level. the level of peoples cognitive schema decides their personal cognitive competence. peoples cognitive competence is affected by their age, sex, education background, interest, social status, profession and so on. therefore, individuals cognitive competence is different. different cognitive competence leads to the different choice of cognitive context, which further leads to the different production and understanding of discourse in written communication. so readers cognitive competence is also an important factor that should not be ignored by writers during the process of writing. let us take a look at the example: (20) after many years of working at the jail, the prison guard had become a hard rock that could not be moved. if the reader is a 5-year-old boy, he may imagine the sentence means that the prison guard was turned into a rock; if the reader is a 8-year-old boy, he may imaging it means that 36 the prison guards muscle was as hard as rock; if the reader is a 10-year-old boy, he may imaging it is a description of the prison guards characteristic. the prison guard must have a bad temper. if the reader is an adult, he or she will understand the sentence as that the prison guards temper is as strong as a rock. obviously, the adults understanding is the most relevant to writers actual meaning. that is why writers have to evaluate readers cognitive competence before writing. if the whole discourse is written to children, then this segment of the discourse fails to comply with the optimal relevance principle. according to the above analysis, it is clear that readers cognitive context plays an important role in the discourse production. communication is the interplay of participants. just as a coin has two sides, besides considering the influential factors from writers, it is necessary to put light on the recipient. 4.3.2 readers expectation and written discourse production communication is an important part of social lives. in any situation, it is undoubtful that people participate in communication with some kinds of expectations. in the process of communication, they try to achieve more information which is relevant to themselves. written communication is the dialogue between a writer and a reader. discourse is the intermedium between the participants. written intention is the motivation for writers to pay the writing effort. readers also read a book or newspaper, etc. with some kinds of expectation. for example: when readers read a story, they may have expectations about what will happen in the next section. sometimes the expectations are strong and clear; sometimes they are weak and vague if the writer has not leave any clue about the following information, readers will be hard to be attracted. during the process of writing, writers have to imagine what are expected by readers. when a reader reads a sentence in discourse, expectations about the next part will be formed in his brain and the expectations will restrict the interpretation of the following information. the reading process should be that when a reader reads a point of discourse, he will set up some expectations about how it will develop. if the following sentences match one or more of his expectations, the reader will continue reading with the unmatched expectations. this process repeats until the end of the written communication. a