Context Displacement And Its Pragmatic Functions

The study of context has attracted many people in the contemporary linguistic field. Traditional study of context has laid more emphasis on the study of various contextual factors; yet such study has, to some extent, neglected the dynamic feature of context. Cognitive context argues that all contextual factors can only work through the cognition of communicative main subjects. When analyzing knowledge structures for communication, we should generalize the contextual content from a psychological representation. Within the dynamic speech communication process context is a developing and changing dynamic system that is continuously created, selected and outspread.So far, in the linguistic field in China, the application of cognitive context to forensic practice has rarely been explored. Theoretically instructed by the cognitive context of the relevance theory, the thesis uses for reference the up-to-date research achievements of cognitive linguistics, psychology and cognitive pragmatics to discuss basic rules of context displacement and its applied value with materials of Chinese forensic discourse, which, to a certain degree, enriches context study. The thesis touches great importance to the dynamic feature of context, puts forward the concept of "context displacement" and classifies context displacement into ten types. At the same time it describes the significance of context displacement in cognitive psychological schema in verbal communication. Moreover, it discusses five pragmatic functions of context displacement in forensic discourse. The significance of this research lies in guiding specific forensic practice, in helping forensic personnel to be aware of context displacement and to improve their expression, comprehension and communicative competence, and in achieving the ultimate aim of the research of language of the law, that is, serving the realization of judicial justice.