An Analysis On Functions Of Cognitive Context In Utterance Understanding

The study on utterance understanding has a long history. It has been rapidly developed as a major area in linguistic studying. Language is an important tool for communication. Utterance understanding is an indispensible part for social communication. In the process of the utterance understanding, we not only need to express our ideas precisely, but also need to correctly understand each other's meanings. Therefore, utterance understanding is an important prerequisite for successful communication. So taking a thorough and broad study on utterance understanding has theoretical and practical value.Utterance understanding is a two-way activity which includes the generation and reception of the information. After studying we find out that in the process of understanding, context is an indispensable factor which influences the generation and reception of utterances. And utterance understanding always occurs in particular context.This thesis analyzes utterance meaning dynamically from cognitive angle. On this base, it proposes the concept of cognitive context, which is different from traditional context. Traditional context considers context as static and regards it as mutual knowledge which exists previously in communicators'mind. But cognitive context is dynamic. It is a series of assumption in communicators'mind. In the process of utterance understanding, cognitive context determines how well the utterance is understood. Different cognitive environment has different function in utterance understanding. Only by making use of mutual cognitive environment, which is provided by context, can communicators infer and get the contextual effect and understand the real meaning in the information.Based on relevance theory and cognitive context, this thesis studies the cognitive and constructive process of utterance understanding. Utterance understanding is an ostensive-inference process by looking for relevance with the new information to get the optimal contextual effect and achieve the communicative purpose. Cognitive context is an important factor in utterance understanding which has the function of restriction, interpretation, filtration and addition. They can reduce the redundancy of utterance, enhance ostensive-inference, clarify meaning, infer meaning and complement meaning and provide highly advantageous condition for successful communication. This thesis also applies the empirical studying through testing by taking the dialogues from Prison Break as data. It further proves the importance of cognitive context in utterance understanding.At the end of this thesis, some relevant implications are provided. It generalizes the factors influencing utterance understanding and points out the strategies of utterance understanding. In the process of utterance understanding, communicators should keep a good state of mind and avoid excessive affection by emotion. At the same time, in order to find out the relevant context quickly, the communicators'scope of knowledge should be enlarged. Because of the important functions of cognition in utterance understanding, the author points out that we can not only apply cognitive context to the improvement of daily utterance understanding, but also introduce it the teaching of reading comprehension. It is helpful to promote students'reading ability.