| Discourse Analysis is an analysis of spoken and written form of language in use, which is an important part in modern linguistics. Foreign and Chinese linguists, especially foreign linguists made great contribution to the discourse analysis. Cohesion and coherence is one of the hot topic and focus in discourse analysis.Missing Links (MLs) are a linguistic phenomenon closely connected with cohesion and coherence in discourse. MLs were firstly put forward by Dutch scholar Van Dijk. Natual language discourse, unlike formal discourse, is not fully explicit. According to Van Dijk, MLs refer to "propositions which are postulated to establish theoretical coherence of a text but which are not expressed in the discourse" (Van Dijk, 1977: 95) Chinese linguist Zhang Delu used MLs to study cohesion between discourse and context. From the surface of discourse, discourse with MLs seems incoherent. However, from macro-structure of discourse, discourse is coherent by filling in MLs. The more knowledge participants mutually share, the more MLs there are in discourse.Till now, the studies of MLs have drawn a lot of linguists' attention, but most of the studies are descriptive, there are few studies on underlying cognitive mechanism of MLs, which is the main purpose of this thesis. We will study the underlying mechanism of MLs through the production of MLs in discourse and comprehension of MLs in discourse from a cognitive perspective.According to relevant discussion of Chinese and foreign linguists (Van Dijk, 1977;Brown& Yule, 1983;胡壮麟, 1994;etc.), we tend to use discourse to refer to both written and spoken form in this thesis. MLs in discourse can be classified into two categories: automatic MLs and inferable MLs. When the ML is already part of the knowledge representation activated by one part of the discourse, no additional time isrequired to understand subsequent reference to another element in that representations, such MLs are called as automatic one. On the other hand, when MLs did not activate part of the knowledge representation by one part of discourse, we had to make a bridging assumption which we called inference. Such MLs are called as inferable one. Identification of categories of MLs depends on context.From pragmatic perspective, MLs are a realization of Principle of Economy, which is realized by the proper devices for textual efficiency. MLs are one of the devices for textual efficiency. The author also argues that MLs are a realization of Information Principle (I-principle). Stereotypical relations play an important role in realizing I-principle.MLs are not only concerned with pragmatics, but also a product of human cognition. SAM (Spreading Activation Model) is cognitive foundation of MLs. The author holds that cognitive models play an important role in discourse analysis. It is cognitive models that give speaker's capability of producing MLs and hearer's capability of filling in or inferring MLs to draw a conclusion with reasonable economy. The form of cognitive models, proposition-schema that specify concepts and the relations, which hold among them, is closely related to MLs. Four ways of representing the propositional-schemas which are used in the production and understanding of discourse: frames, scripts, schemata, scenario will be discussed respectively in this thesis.Viewed from Sperber & Wilson's Relevance Theory (RT), we discuss the reason why a discourse with MLs produced by addressors can be perceived by addressees. We hold that the production and comprehension of discourse is a dynamic process of ostensive-inferential communication. MLs are a product of cooperation between addressors and addressees. On the one hand, the addressor provides linguistic stimulus with optimal relevance, rationally deciding what information should be explicitly expressed and implicitly expressed according to hypothesis about theaddressee's cognitive enviroment. On the other hand, the addressee fills in MLs by inferential mechanism to draw a conclusion. The inference of MLs is not an easy job. It is done by deductive rules.Our study on the MLs in this thesis is valuable both theoretically and practically. Theoretically, our study of the MLs combines discourse analysis with pragmatics and cognitive linguistics, it will be not only a promotion of discourse analysis, but also a piece of evidence of Conversational Principle, Relevance Theory, Cognitive Models in discourse analysis. Practically, our study on the MLs will be helpful to our construction and comprehension of discourse. What we have done here is just a tentative study on certain aspects of MLs. There is no doubt that MLs as an amazing new linguistic phenomenon is worth more linguistic awareness.
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