A Cognitive Pragmatic Analysis Of Meta - Language Negation

This thesis presents a cognitive and pragmatic analysis on metalinguistic negation. Metalinguistic negation, as a kind of special negation exists in many languages. In essence, the previous research of metalinguistic negation is limited in the semantic field, and does not penetrate into other fields. Therefore it fails to answer the problems such as the essence of metalinguistic negation and its decoding process. Now this article makes a study of the nature and interpretation of metalinguistic negation from the perspectives of cognitive and pragmatic linguistics. We apply to echo theory proposed by Carston and ostension theory to interpret it. Carston effectively interprets its pragmatic nature that is the deferred ostension. Metalinguistic negation is a double-meaning phenomenon, and the source of echo lies in the utterance of other people, which is the foundation of the echo. Through the echoic use of the utterance, the speaker intends the receiver to pay attention to the deferred ostension of the utterance that is beyond direct ostension, which is the essence of metalinguistic negation.While we use the ostension theory to explore metalingusitic negation, we find that it is necessary to put the cognitive factors into consideration. In addition to the application of the ostension theory, we also need to pay attention to the context and the cognitive models. On one hand, metalinguistic negation is essentially the negation of the idealized cognitive model of the listener. Generally speaking, the negation happens in an idealized cognitive model; however, metalinguistic negation operates between two idealized cognitive models, which is the fundamental difference from common negation. On the other hand, the meaning of language mainly depends on the cognitive frame, and the linguistic representation is the activiator of the cognitive frame. Therefore, the interpretation of metalinguistic negation is to find the linguistic representation that can activate the frame consistent with speaker’s intention. In this paper, based on the theory of the frame model and its main characteristics we have an understanding of the decoding process of metalinguistic negation. This paper is based on the echo theory proposed by Carston and its modification theory-- the ostension theory we get the nature and interpretation of metalinguistic negation from the cognitive and pragmatic perspectives.