A Cognitive-pragmatic Analysis Of Language Reports In Written Discourse

People have done much descriptive study on language reports, especially on the aspect of grammatical transformation. However, little interpretative study on the same topic has been seen until now. Linguistic communication is primarily a cognitive event, but the study of the cognition-related aspects of language reports has long been neglected.Starting for the above reasons, the present study centers its attention on the employment of language reports in written discourse with the purpose of exploring the following two questions:A. Why do people use language reports in written discourse?B. What's the cognitive mechanism underlying language reports in written discourse?Based on the definition and delimitation of language reports in this study and the analysis of the data from the articles or books, it is found that the employment of language reports in written discourse has its own specific characteristics. A systematic descriptive study of the voice, the message, the reporting signal and the reporter's attitude is made in this thesis. The message can be reported in a wide range of forms. The different forms of reporting are mainly decided by different communicative purposes, that is, what the reporter wants to achieve through the use of language reports.It is proposed that language reports are shaped by the interplay of linguistic and non-linguistic factors, thus they can be best explained in a theoretical framework which represents a knowledge-for-use conception. As to the reason why the reporting speaker sometimes uses language reports in written discourse, it is assumed that language reports can bring out certain pragmatic function to help to achieve certain communicative intention. Through data analysis of written discourse, the present study proposes that language reports have three pragmatic functions in written discourse: a. making narration vivid; b. creating persuasive effect; c. dissociating responsibility.It is suggested that reporting the given information in another situation is a cognitive process in which human mental participation is essential. The reporting speaker's ultimate purpose of using language reports is to make the addresseerealize his communicative intentions, that is, to achieve contextual effect. Communicative effect and intention are the essential rules of employing language reports in written discourse.This thesis highlights that the language report as a kind of language expression is a blending result of a conceptual structure with a grammatical construction. When understanding the meaning of language reports, the addressee first creatively builds up the mapping relations among mental spaces according to the conventional interrelation between conceptual elements in the conceptual structure and then calculates the implicature from literal meaning so as to fulfill the communication.A cognitive-pragmatic approach to language reports helps to understand the essence of language reports more clearly and provides evidence for proper use and comprehension of language reports in communication. Meanwhile it benefits foreign language teaching and discourse analysis.