Multi-dimensional Perspectives Of Utterance Interpretations Based On Bidirectional Optimality Theory

This dissertation aims to build up a framework based on the Bi-directional Optimality Theory (Bidirectional OT), which can be used for utterance interpretation in multi-dimensional perspectives. As is known to all, many scholars have put forward their own principles or theories on utterance interpretation, such as Gricean Cooperative Principles, Leech's Politeness Principle, Brown and Levinson's Face Theory, Sperber&Wilson's Relevance Theory, and Blutner's Bidirectional OT and the like. However, they make the utterance interpretation from different perspectives. Our model is trying to make the utterance interpretation based on the Bidirectional OT from multi-dimensional perspectives. Why do we have to borrow the idea from the Bidirectional OT theoretical perspective? That is because Bidirectional OT takes into account not only the speaker side but also the hearer side, that is, the utterance interpretation will be sufficient and appropriate only if the both sides are involved.Since the introduction of Optimality Theory (OT) into phonology by Alan Prince and Paul Smolensky in1993, OT has had an enormous impact on the field of linguistics. Initially, OT was only applied to the linguistic sub-domains of phonology, morphology and syntax. OT was used at the very first in the domain of phonology, in which it provided a nice framework for the interpretation of the structure of syllables and the change of phoneme. Petra Hendriks and Helen de Hoop played a significant role in introducing OT into the sub-domain of semantics. They showed that OT is able to elucidate several issues in semantics pertaining to the syntax/semantics interface. Following the introduction of OT into the domain of natural language interpretation, Reinhard Blutner pointed out the necessity of bidirectional versions of OT for integrating formal pragmatics into OT. However, the combination of formal pragmatics and Bidirectional OT still produces some problems. It only solves the problem at the levels of words and isolated sentences, but it can not provide an overall interpretation of the utterances at level of a conversation. Therefore, this research has put forward our own utterance interpretation model, which focus on the constraints. We divide the constraints into categories:intra-linguistic and extra-linguistic constraints. Intra-linguistic constraint refers to the "faithfulness" constraint, which is triggered by conventions of language use and a non-inferential meaning arises without the help of contexts. Extra-linguistic constraint is included in the following parts:Principle Control, Knowledge Base and psychological/cognitive mechanism."Principle Control" is a system, which covers all the pragmatic principles. Before the interpretation of natural utterances starts, all these maxims remain in the "backgrounding" of the system. When the utterance interpretation begins, the immediate principle/maxim will be activated and come to the "foregrounding" of the system, which will interpret the meanings of the utterance as the optimal principle/maxim."Knowledge Base" consists of three parts, termed as "general situation","cultural situation" and "social situation", which control the interpretation of the natural utterances, taking into account the different situations."General situation" is considered to be the "encyclopedia knowledge" when people use communicating with each other; and "cultural situation" refers to those cultural beliefs, values, attitudes, norms, life style etc. that are rooted in different cultures."Social situation" refers to those humane and conventional social norms that people generally comply with in communication, which is required by social situation. Every social situation has its own norms, for example, which utterance can be said, which utterance cannot be easily arranged, and which utterance can never be said. Therefore, the effectiveness of social situation is the important principle of people's rationalized social behaviors.We define the psychological and cognitive mechanism as a "psychological construct", which is a series of assumptions in our mind about the real world, not only including the communicative actual settings and the contextual message, but also including the expectation of the future, scientific assumptions, religious beliefs, long-term or short-term memory and the judgment that the hearer has on the speaker's state of mind. In linguistic communication, the hearer has the assumptions of the real world deposited in our mind as the form of conceptual representation, so as to build up the cognitive context for the process of new information.On the basis of Bidirectional OT, this dissertation has made some modifications on the constraints of Bidirectional OT and put forward a theoretical model for the interpretation of natural utterances, whose content is embodied in the two constraints that my research has issued. According to these constraints, people can select the optimal input and output of utterances in conversations, and on this basis, they can finally obtain the most optimal utterance interpretation.This study, methodologically speaking, essentially relies on the qualitative analysis of the data. It is data-driven and theory-driven at the same time. Being "theory-driven", it means that the present study aims to present a pragmatic model to the analysis of utterance interpretation, which can be applied to both English and Chinese languages. Being "data-driven", it means that all the theoretic assumptions and conclusions come from the scrutinizing of the data. Our study is viewed as a qualitative one which is data-driven. Therefore, data collection plays an essential part in this study. The data used in this study are mainly extracted from Chinese spoken discourses including those written for speeches and some TV plays and movies.This dissertation is designed into7chapters. Chapter One presents a general introduction to the research, and it has explained the reasons and motivations to this research by presenting the problems in the existing studies on utterance interpretations based on OT pragmatics in general, and setting the objectives for the present study. Chapter Two provides a review of the relevant literature based on our categorization of the previous studies on the related theme. The achievements and limitations of the past researches are discussed, and the orientation of the current research is presented. Chapter Three focuses on the framework of Bidirectional OT on the basis of related theories, among which Strong Version Analytical Model and Weak Version Analytical Model are discussed that deal respectively with the total blocking and partial blocking to the utterance interpretation. It also points out some problems of the Bidirectional OT framework. To illustrate the process of this framework, the following chapters serve to analyze its component aspects and the modification to this model. Chapter Four shows us the modified utterance interpretation model based on Bidirectional OT pragmatics and probes into the components of this modification to the Bidirectional OT model, with the focus on the constraints, which is classified into two aspects:intra-linguistic constraint and extra-linguistic constraints. Chapter Five discusses in detail the intra-linguistic constraint, which is termed as faithfulness constraint, because it deals with the default meaning of utterances, which is triggered without the help of context. It describes the defaulting meaning by different theories. Chapter Six illustrates the working of extra-linguistic constraints motivated by Principle Control, Knowledge Base, and Psychological and Cognitive Mechanism. Chapter Seven summarizes the major findings of the present research, points out its limitations and suggests some directions for further study.Although this research has attempted some exploratory research on interpretation of natural utterances, yet the findings are still not enough, which has only revealed the "tip of the iceberg". In this dissertation there may still be some weakness and deficiency in linguistic data that is more extensive than intensive, more rudimentary than systematic and more tentative than conclusive, which needs further studies. We are expecting more scholars to involve in the study of this field and we are also expecting that more research achievements in depth will come out.