A Pragma-cognitive Study Of The Comprehension Mechanism Of Definite Descriptions

Since the "linguistic turn" of Western philosophy,definite descriptions have been a lively and fertile topic of philosophical debate(Neale,2005).Firstly,as commonly used referential expressions,definite descriptions play a key role in the utterance understanding and communication(Chen,2015).Secondly,definite descriptions are subjected to the test of diverse philosophical theories and semantic theories(Russell,1905;Strawson,1950;Recanati,1993;Elbourne,2013;Wang,2012;Chen,2012b,2013;Wang,2013).Lastly,definite descriptions are frequently discussed within the scope of semantic-pragmatic interface research.In the context of the existing research,after briefly reviewing three leading philosophers,namely,Russell,Strawson and Donnellan in this topic,outlining the debate on attributive/referential use and on the corresponding semantic-pragmatic interface issue in terms of their similarities and differences,and unveiling the turn of definite description research from purely semantic one to semantic-pragmatic interface research,this dissertation points out that there are relatively fewer studies on the comprehension mechanism of definite descriptions.Specifically,these recurring questions still need to be answered:What is the role of conceptual encoding and context in interpreting definite descriptions?How do they participate in the process of comprehension?And how can we account for the default and non-default readings thereof?The corresponding research questions are as follows:1)What is the role of conceptual encoding in interpreting definite descriptions?2)What is the role of context in interpreting definite descriptions?3)What is the comprehension mechanism of definite descriptions through the pragma-cognitive perspective?As more pragmatic theories have been employed to account for definite descriptions,inspired by an alternative account of the semantics-pragmatics boundary(Chen,2015),this study attempts to combine two contextualist theories,namely,Relevance Theory and Default Semantics and explore interpreting definite descriptions on a relevance-theoretic account incorporating a default inference to uncover the pragma-cognitive comprehension mechanism of definite descriptions.In order to verify the theoretical hypotheses on the comprehension model of definite descriptions,this study adopts a think-aloud protocol and a supplementary interview.Combining theoretical analysis and empirical evidence,the study winds up with the following findings:1)Usually a trigger for utterance comprehension,conceptual encoding is neither a sufficient condition,in many cases nor a necessary condition to obtain the corresponding interpretations.Different definite descriptions with different encoded conceptual content provide different contextual information,thus leading to the varying degrees of processing cost,various patterns of processing procedures and various interpretations.Data drawn from the think-aloud experiment and follow-up interview mostly confirm the theoretical hypothesis on the role of conceptual encoding.Generally speaking,when complete definite descriptions are used attributively and incomplete definite descriptions are used attributively and generically,encoded conceptual content is not a sufficient condition but a necessary condition to obtain the corresponding interpretations.For the other definite descriptions of referential,attributive or kind-referring uses respectively,encoded conceptual content is neither a sufficient condition nor a necessary condition to obtain the corresponding interpretations.2)Cognitive context,a psychological construct,including the information about the co-text,the immediate observable environment and encyclopedia information determines the interpretation of definite descriptions.It is also the Communicative Principle of Relevance that guides the whole interpretation process.It is context that determines which individual concepts will be selected by hearers and whether an ad hoc concept needs to be constructed or not.Except for complete definite descriptions of attributive use,when processing other definite descriptions of different uses,guided by the Communicative Principle of Relevance,interpreters need to retrieve accessible contextual assumptions to enrich encoded conceptual content to obtain de re,descriptive or type concept and the corresponding readings.Empirical evidence shows that the inadequacy and inappropriateness of context construction will lead to interpretation failures.3)There are differences and similarities in interpreting different definite descriptions.As the degrees of processing efforts vary,there is a default reading in interpreting different definite descriptions.For different definite descriptions there are default inference and non-default inference in the interpretation process guided by the Communicative Principle of Relevance and which interpretation is assigned to definite descriptions depends on the context.On receiving the utterance stimulus,hearers enrich the encoded content with a de re concept given the accessibility of the referent of the concept,thus obtaining a default referential reading.Empirical evidence confirms this referential reading is relatively more default and effort-saving.In most cases,in order to satisfy the expectation of relevance,hearers need encoded conceptual content or ad hoc concept to acquire a descriptive concept or type concept,thus obtaining the corresponding non-default readings.The present study offers some theoretical and practical implications.Theoretically,it enriches semantic-pragmatic interface research by incorporating a default inference into a relevance-theoretic account of utterance comprehension,and exhibits all sorts of enrichments in processing definite descriptions.Through summarizing the role of conceptual encoding and context in interpreting definite descriptions,this study unveils a pragma-cognitive account of the comprehension mechanism.Practically,this study helps communicators understand reference and the link between language and the world better and also hopefully helps EFL learners master the different uses of definite descriptions.However,research findings drawing data from this quasi-experiment are far from conclusive.They only suggest the possible comprehension mechanism of definite descriptions.