Textual Pragmatics Thinking In Textual Essence And Dragon Carving

The framework of the present thesis is synthetical in that it embraces deBeaugrande&Dressler (1981), the prior fruit in this domain and the original thread ofthought of Liu Xie. Specifically, the framework involves the context and situationality(Chapter3), intentionality and acceptability (Chapter4), cognition and metaphors(Chapter5) and intertextuality (Chapter6), and their interaction with the regulativeprinciple. The procedural approach, in particular, regards each chapter relativelyindependent and interconnected. The joint efforts made by them exhibit thesystematicness of the textual-pragmatics of Textual Essence and Dragon Carving(Wen Xin Diao Long).The contextual thoughts comprises combinational pattern and global outlook. Theformer incoporates linguistic context besides adjoint context and socio-culturalcontext. The linguistic context, previously neglected, is so-called language ranks, ofwhich, the conceptions "direct context" and "indirect context" are more manifest andsweeping, compared with those of J. R. Firth and Wang Chuming. The latter isfeatured by comprehensiveness, that is,"context+impure context" and "static context+dynamic context". The conception of "impure context" is due to his unswervingpersistence in pursuing the Saint and abiding by the Scriptures while the dynamiccontext refers not only to the variables in the course of language use but to thesituational deviance of the contextual components and its pragmatic effect; not only tohow the language user cognizes the synthesis of factors involved in languagecommunication but to the winning combination of subject and object during languageuse.The core to "meaning beyond text (yi sheng yan wai)" in Textual Essence andDragon Carving is the notion of "the latent and the outstanding (yinxiu)", two sidesof meaning, from the angle of textual acceptability, is typical of Liuxie’stextual-pragmatics thoughts. Appropriateness as one of standards within the regulativerule proposed by de Beaugrande&Dressler (1981) indicates the relevance betweencontext and textuality, thus judging the processing ease and depth of communication participants. It is, however, indistinct, and calls for the convincing makeup by "thelatent and the outstanding" which specifies the vehicles of appropriateness.Furthermore, it is unwarrantable to unconditionally interchange "meaning beyond text(yi sheng wen wai)" with "meaning beyond words (yan wai zhi yi)" and"conversational implicature (implicature)" for their dissimilar connotations in light ofintentionality or/and acceptability.With "the cognitive turn" of text linguistics, cognitive approach is essential totextual-pragmatics. Liu Xie’s cognitive-linguistic thoughts are primarily on thesentence level and text level. The former is incarnated by chunqiubifa (a style highlyslanted but subtle and guarded meanwhile) and the latter by metaphors ("bi" and"xing"). The principle of cultural-psychological sequence (PCS) effectivelycomplements PTS and the heavily culture-loaded semantic-framework notion of LiuXie is again typical of his cultural outlook of text-pragmatics. Furthermore, thecategories of metaphor in Textual Essence and Dragon Carving surmount thosepopular today and metaphor, to him, plays double roles in cognition and emotion. It iscreative in both meanings and angles for perceiving the new.Intertextuality in Textual Essence and Dragon Carving encompasses manifestintertextuality (in Shilei) and constuitive intertextuality (in Tixing and Dingshi), ofwhich, metaphorical intertextuality, intertextual metaphor, textual metaphor andtextual cohesion are interwoven, coreferring to textuality. Along with his outlook ofcontext, Liu Xie’s cultural intertextuality is embodied in social subject’s socialorientation via text and demarcates macro-historical intertextuality andmicro-historical intertextuality on the basis of text and history. Intertextuality inTextual Essence and Dragon Carving is closly tied to acceptability, metaphoricalness,coherence, situationality, intentionality and appropriateness.Liu Xie’s textual-pragmatics, from the vested framework, appears fertile incontents. It follows closely the interaction between language, culture and ideology, theprocess of language use and its internal cognitive mechanism. What’s noteworthy, itaims not only to the main categories within the western framework of textualpragmatics, but to their relevance to metaphors, cognition and language meaning, etc. It is such global relevance that constitutes the circulating network of Liu Xie’s systemof textual-pragmatics.