Jezikoslovlje, Vol. 8 No. 2, 2007.
Izvorni znanstveni članak
Modelling thought in language use: At the crossroads between discourse, pragmatics, and cognition
Jose Luis Otal Campo
; Universitat Jaume I
Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza
; University of La Rioja
Sažetak
This article studies a number of semantic and pragmatic phenomena with consequences
for the development of discourse. Thus, our study of the way we make
use of cognitive models in discourse allows us to postulate the principle of
“Metaphoric Source Selection”: the metaphorical extension of a concept can only
select partial structure from this concept to construct the metaphoric source. The
recognition of degrees of centrality in semantic specifications underlies the “Peripherality
Principle”, a discourse principle grounded in the “Principle of Relevance”:
when the most central characterization of a concept is not capable of creating
discourse coherence, speakers turn to less central specifications and select
the one that best satisfies the conditions of relevance. We then address the question
of the pragmatic grounding of so-called cohesion and coherence in discourse.
We claim that ellipsis and substitution are discourse phenomena subject to pragmatic
constraints and argue for the existence of the “Conceptual Structure Selection
Principle”, which accounts for the semantic scope of ellipsis and substitution
devices: these have within their scope as much structure as is not cancelled out by
the discourse unit that contains the cohesion device. We have redefined the cohesion-
coherence distinction as one between procedural and conceptual connectivity
and have formulated two further principles of discourse connectivity: the “Principle of Iconicity” and the “Principle of Conceptual Prominence”. There is a large
amount of evidence that iconic arrangements are an important aspect of discourse
coherence. Still, there is little work done with respect to the principles that regulate
non-iconic arrangements. The Principle of Conceptual Prominence, which accounts
for the special discourse status of prominent non-iconic information, fills
this vacuum. The final part of this research work focuses upon the analysis of discourse
strategies as non-conventional sets of procedures that allow speakers to
create and interpret procedurally and conceptually connected texts. Two reverse
discourse strategies are formulated, both related to the balance between procedural
and conceptual markers of discourse connectivity. To this we add two other discourse
principles, the “Principle of Internal Contrast” and the “Principle of External
Contrast”. The former is based upon explicit procedural operations, whereas
the latter makes use of conceptual connectivity. Lastly, we distinguish two more
discourse principles that constrain strategic discourse activity: the “Principle of
Conceivability”, which regulates conceptual links with situations in terms of the
possibility of creating plausible mental scenarios for them; and the “Principle of
Relative Distance”, which helps sort out ambiguities in anaphoric operations on
the basis of the relative distance between the anaphoric pronoun and its potential
antecedent as licensed by the Principle of Conceivability.
Ključne riječi
discourse; pragmatics; cognitive models, metaphor; metonymy; cohesion; coherence; discourse connectivity; relevance, ambiguity; iconicity
Hrčak ID:
30733
URI
Datum izdavanja:
22.12.2007.
Posjeta: 2.637 *