Logophoricity:LDRs In Chinese And English Discourse

This dissertation is intended to study what is known, grammatically and pragmatically, as logophoricity or logophora. Logophoricity is an ad hoc, given phenomenon of long-distance anaphora (LDA) or long-distance reflexivization in language. There is no complete consensus among the linguistic scholars regarding its definitions. Here, however, I largely cite Yan Huang's (2004a, 2007) definition of logophoricity and give a brief description of what it is as follows. Logophoricity refers to the phenomenon in which the perspective or point of view of an internal protagonist of a sentence or discourse, as opposed to that of the current, external speaker, is reported by some morphological and/or syntactical means. The term'perspective'or'point of view'is used here in a technical sense and is intended to encompass the words, thoughts, knowledge, emotion, perception and space-location in relation to the protagonist (cf. Huang (ibid.), for different definitions see also Hagège 1974, Clements 1975, Sells 1987, Reuland 2009). Put roughly, logophoricity can be simply taken as a sort of particular realization, or ad hoc wording, of discourse anaphora, and here for our part is especially deemed as an anaphoric linkage between a long-distance reflexive (LDR) and an NP encoding a minimal discourse-internal protagonist (MDP). Such an anaphoric/logophoric linkage does exist, though to varying degrees, in both Chinese and English (C-E) discourse: it is established in Chinese frequently (if not definitely always) with simplex reflexive'ziji', and in English with reflexive'Pn-self'.Long-range reflexivization or/and logophora has/have around three decades been a topic of research in linguistic field. Scholars, both formalist and functionalist, have done much research on it. Formal linguists'studies centered on the formulation of distinctive theories or approaches (e.g.'head-to-head movement','IP-adjunction','thematic hierarchy'and'self-ascription') with an view to cracking the problem confronting Chomsky's (1981, 1982) GB Theory—long-range binding occurring outside the governing category. Therefore, these studies, made along the line of Chomsky's classic binding theory, would be more often than not devoted to binding at the sentence level and intended to work out some syntactical rules regulating the structures of binding; and they are of theoretical significance. But obviously, they have their limitations: they cannot really deal with long-distance bound reflexives, since they attempted to handle long-distance reflexivization which is non-syntactical in nature, with some (parameterized) binding theories. Long-range reflexivization would be an issue of discourse anaphora but not a syntactical one; so the formalists'analyses have not solved it successfully.And there are important studies devoted exclusively to logophoricity, such as Sells (1987), Zribi-Hertz (1989) and Baker (1995). These are not done on a sheerly (traditional) formalistic basis and instead more on a discourse/pragmatic basis. Then, there are quite a few studies on long-distance reflexivization and logophoricity from the perspective of pragmatics, some of which are dedicated to African and Western languages and the Chinese language (among others). The more influential are Horn (1984, 1989), Levinson (1991, 2000) and Huang (1994, 2007). Y. Xu (2004), nonetheless, made a systematic functional-pragmatic study of discourse anaphora resolution, including the uses of LDRs in Chinese. Also, I myself lately did research on the anaphoric uses of LDRs and pronouns in Chinese in line with some of the pragmatic theories (cf. Liu 2007a, 2008a). The studies conducted from the pragmatic/functionalist perspective would be in a sense more effective in accounting for the functions of reflexives and pronouns. Given the fact that, however, there is much less research in the literature done cross-linguistically, we find it worthwhile to pursue a further, in-depth investigation of the logophoric/anaphoric uses of LDRs in C-E discourse on a greater number of textual data.Our data are composed of testified examples drawn from Chinese and English novels or stories, and we intend to examine the differences and similarities in logophora / LDA in C-E discourse. We have three questions to research into: (i) what are the distributional similarities and differences in logophoric vs. non-logophoric patterns made by the LDRs in C-E discourse? (ii) What are the functions of the LDRs and the motivations for their uses in C-E discourse? (iii) What are the similarities and dissimilarities in anaphoric production involving the LDRs in C-E discourse?We have conducted this study with qualitative plus quantitative method, aside from adopting Chesterman's (1998, cf. also Xu 2005) CFA ('contrastive functional analysis') method. Overall, we have two tasks: the first is to analyze the Chinese and English textual data to find out about the distributions of logophora/LDA patterns in C-E discourse; and the second to analyze the C-E and E-C translation data to find out about the functions of Chinese LDRs vs. English LDRs / pronouns and the motivations for their different uses in discourse. Drawing principally on the Western scholars'theories and ideas, we have formulated as our analytical framework a set of pragmatic principles governing the LDRs in C-E discourse, which hinges on the MDP. And with it we have given a unified treatment of the uses of LDRs in Chinese and English.The major findings are as follows.(1) In the case of anaphoric pattern, there are similarities and differences in the use of LDRs in C-E discourse. They have something in common in that both are often used to form a'general logophora pattern'. They differ from each other in that as an LDR in Chinese'ziji'is frequently triggered by a logophoric verb to make a'typical logophora pattern'while as an LDR in English'Pn-self'is scarcely so triggered to form such a pattern, showing that the'typical logophora pattern'is perhaps not so frequent in English discourse. There are, nevertheless, a good many non-logophoric patterns made by'Pn-self'in English while there are much fewer such patterns in association with'ziji'in Chinese.(2) In the case of the use of Chinese LDRs vs. their corresponding English wording in translations, though the anaphoric expressions in C-E discourse function somewhat alike, both of their uses are noticeably dissimilar in some respects. First, a Chinese LDR is generally chosen to encode logophora/LDA in discourse, whereas an English pronoun is commonly used to express LDA in discourse. Second, Chinese'ziji'is in the great majority translated into and from an English pronoun, showing that a Chinese speaker tends to often use'ziji'to set up a logophoric linkage in discourse from the protagonist's perspective, while an English speaker is apt to employ a pronoun to establish an anaphoric relationship in discourse from the observer's perspective. Third, in most cases Chinese'Pn-ziji'is also often translated into and from an English pronoun. This is probably because, compared with English speakers, Chinese speakers would prefer to highlight a discourse entity with this complex reflexive.(3) In the case of anaphoric production (anaphoric understanding aside), in Chinese discourse,'ziji'can be well defined as a'logophor', serving basically to refer to an MDP, and'Pn-ziji'serves as, so to say, an intensive expression of pronoun to highlight a discourse entity. By contrast, as an LDR in English discourse,'Pn-self'is used to both establish a logophoric relationship and highlight a discourse entity, owing to the fact that there is no such logophor in English as'ziji'in Chinese. There are, then, upon the whole two types of construction in terms of anaphoric production in C-E discourse: one bearing a single-fold anaphoric linkage and the other bearing multifold ones. With a system of simplex plus complex LDR in Chinese, the anaphoric production modes in Chinese discourse are relatively more complicated than those in English discourse. Moreover, the uses, precisely the anaphoric functions and production modes, of LDRs in C-E discourse can be satisfactorily explained by the set of pragmatic principles formulated in this dissertation, including the'anaphoric interpretation / production'maxims and the'domain of point of view'(DPV) and'animacy / consciousness'constraints.This study has both theoretical and practical implications. One noticeable implication is that as a discourse mechanism, the set of pragmatic principles stated in this dissertation has made some contribution to the current linguistic theorizing, as it will lead to a further rethinking of the interaction between syntactical rule and pragmatic principle. It is argued that grammatical rules (like Chomsky's binding conditions) should not be independent of pragmatic maxims but instead dependent of language use. As depicted in Levinson's (1987a, cf. Huang 2007: 271) metaphor, some such rules are best seen as'frozen pragmatics'—the outcome of a gradual, diachronic process from utterance-token-meaning via utterance-type-meaning to sentence-type-meaning. This does not mean these rules as they are today are not part of the grammar. On the contrary, they are and should be dealt with in the grammar (Huang ibid.). Another point, more specifically, is that the set of our pragmatic principles would add more or less to the advance of the existing linguistic theories. In contrast to the'Subject of Consciousness'(SC) hypothesis and neo-Gricean pragmatic theories, our pragmatic apparatus has its own special edges: (i) it is fit for the anaphoric interpretation and production in C-E discourse, and certainly fitter for addressing the LDRs in Chinese; (ii) it may cover both single-fold and multifold discourse anaphora; (iii) with the concept of MDP, which is not at all a mechanical'clone'of the SC, it seems more predictable and explicable in that it can cope with the anaphora patterns with the antecedent occurring in nearly all possible syntactical positions.Finally, the findings have practical implications for the Chinese learning and EFL teaching. To put it plainly, a good mastery of the uses of LDRs and their logophoric / anaphoric patterns in C-E discourse would be of much help to the Chinese language and EFL learners. This will, for instance, enable them to save time for discourse understanding, to write essays more coherently and effectively, and to do translations more accurately and efficiently.