Inference Of Speaker's Meaning From The Perspective Of Cultural Schema Theory

Speaker's meaning is the meaning that people intend to convey indirectly, and it can be gained only through the inference made by the hearer. In cross-cultural communication, correct inference of speaker's meaning is achieved through the communicating parties'activation of shared cultural schemata and application of inferential theory. Due to the social and cultural differences between China and West, the content schemata activated by discourse information are different. Communicators involved may interpret the same discourse information differently according to the related cultural schemata in their own cognitive contexts. Only when the cultural schemata between the speaker and the hearer overlap completely, and the cultural schemata are successfully activated, can the hearer get the fullest understanding of the discourse. Nowadays, the domestic and overseas scholars have made notable achievements in inference of speaker's meaning. However, their studies are mainly conducted in one language context rather than cross-cultural contexts. This paper first proposes to apply the cultural schema theory to inference of speaker's meaning in cross-cultural communication, and aims to provide a completely new theoretical perspective on inference of speaker's meaning.Based on the analysis of cultural differences between China and West, the paper intends to explore the relationship between cultural schemata and inference of speaker's meaning from three aspects, and then proposes strategies to improve people's inferential abilities. The first is equivalence in cultural schemata, which means both the speaker and the hearer share the same or similar cultural schemata. In the inferential process, the communicators involved could activate related cultural schemata timely to make inferences about the discourse, and the implied meaning of discourse is easier to be understood. The second is conflicts between cultural schemata. Due to different cultural backgrounds, the speaker and the hearer may possess different or even conflicting cultural schemata. If the communicating parties understand the discourse meaning according to their own cultural schemata, this will result in comprehension errors and bias in the process of inference of speaker's meaning. This requires the communicators to enrich and adjust their original cultural schemata timely in order to correctly interpret the utterances. The third is vacancy in cultural schemata. People who speak different languages differ in their modes of thinking, and this may lead to the vacancy or incompleteness of speaker's cultural schemata in the hearer's cognitive context. Neither of communicating parties could find related schemata or complete schemata in the inferential process, which will further cause failure or incompleteness in understanding. The hearer must constantly enrich their own cultural knowledge, increase cultural background knowledge input, and construct new cultural schemata, so that the smooth intercultural communication is ensured.In domestic and overseas linguistic circles, cultural schema theory has received more and more attention. The cultural schema theory explores the inference of speaker's meaning from a new perspective and gives interpretation of all the differences generated in the use of language by communicators with different cultural backgrounds. In-depth analysis and excavation of the influence of cultural schemata and a thorough understanding of different forms of cultural schemata play an extremely significant role in effective inference of speaker's meaning and elimination of pragmatic obstacles and failure, and ensures ultimate successful cross-cultural communication.