The Impact Of Cognitive Context Upon Short Message Interpersonal Interaction From A Cognitive Pragmatics Perspective

In this thesis, we try to present a new approach to the study of a special means of human communication, short messages between cell phones. This approach is grounded in the appearance and development of cognitive science. During 1970s, cognitive science began to affect pragmatics greatly, and as a result, a new branch of general pragmatics study seemed to come into being: cognitive pragmatics. The present study argues that human cognitive processes will be fairly helpful and influential in short messages interpretation.Here is how this thesis came about. In 1986, Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson co-published Relevance: Communication and Cognition. In this book, they penetrated pragmatics from a cognitive perspective and put forward their representative Relevance Theory in which they studied the contextual factors in verbal communication that was regarded as intended cognitive activity.This study starts with a general and systematic examination of cognitive pragmatics, and especially the concept of context. First, we provide the philosophical origin of cognitive pragmatics, which is Charles Morris' semiotics and Grice's logical deduction of conversational implicature. Second, the thesis makes a general survey of context and its dynamic nature in dealing with personal communication. All discussions are on the basis of Relevance Theory and Xiong Xueliang's category of cognitive context.After clarifying the notions of cognitive pragmatics and cognitive context, we give an account of the methodology applied in this research. The research questions are: 1) whether there is any influence of cognitive context on short messages interpretation; 2) whether the four components of cognitive context in Xiong's division affects the interaction of short message differently and in a certain sequence; and 3) whether the cognitive context takes part in the interaction dynamically and how it does. In the subsequent part, we provide a detailed analysis of the cognitive context's impact on short message interaction according to the above research questions. The practical and theoretical implications are also addressed. Finally thethesis points out remaining problems with Xiong's category of cognitive context and limitations of the present study.It is only a tentative pragmatics study on short message interpersonal interaction. In undertaking this study and writing this thesis, we hope that we have succeeded in capturing the essence of cognitive pragmatics and applying it appropriately in this certain means of communication.