A Cognitive Exploration Of Deep Anaphora In English

Anaphora is traditionally regarded as a syntactically controlled co-referentialrelationship on the surface level of language. It is dominated by the agreement ofperson, gender, number as well as other syntactic rules. A special type inanaphora—deep anaphora—is gaining more and more attention. Different fromsurface anaphora, the deep anaphora is pragmatically controlled and it can takeobjects and events in the extra-linguistic contexts as antecedents.The research on anaphora has a long tradition and it has been investigated fromvarious perspectives within linguistics and psychology. Although many importantinsights and observations have come out of this work, basic facts concerning thedistribution and understanding of different kinds of anaphora in English still remainunexplained. Ariel's Accessibility Theory can fully account for the surface anaphora.However, Ariel fails to give a satisfactory answer to deep anaphora in her thesis. Andthe previous research on anaphora neglects the analysis of anaphoric repair.This thesis aims to take a cognitive point of view, in which deep anaphora is torefer to a psychologically prominent entity out of the surface level of language. Underthis viewpoint, this thesis will develop a cognitive exploration of deep anaphora onthe basis of Ariel's Accessibility Theory, Langacker's Conceptual Reference PointTheory and Current Discourse Space Theory within the Cognitive Grammar. Zeroanaphora can be fully interpreted by Accessibility theory while the understanding ofantecedentless anaphora and ambiguous anaphora has to resort to Langacker'sConceptual Reference Point Theory and Current Discourse Space Theory. When thereference point is marked by an expression of high accessibility, and if a co-occurringexpression is in low degree of accessibility in the dominion, the expression cannotco-refer with the reference point. However, the dominion is dynamic and newelements are involved in through a suitable anchor—an element in the dominion,which can guide the conceptualizer to reach the correct target. The accessibility analysis of the referent reveals the cognitive and psychologicalprocess of anaphoric choice in anaphora (surface anaphora and zero anaphora in deepanaphora). Ariel's Accessibility Theory is a cognitive theory that speakers guideaddressees' retrievals of mental representations corresponding to all definite NPs(co-referent as well as disjoint) by signaling to them the degree of Accessibilityassociated with the intended mental entity in their memory. When the entity is in highaccessibility, the speaker can use a referring expression lower in informativity andrigidity and higher in attenuation. Otherwise, the speaker takes an expression higherin informativity and rigidity, and lower in attenuation. Therefore, the conceptualizerscan interpret the potential antecedent of the anaphor according to the guidingprinciples and the four factors. Zero pronouns enjoy the highest accessibility in theaccessibility marking scale. Therefore, the referents of zero pronouns are prominent inthe addressees' mind. Accessibility Theory has successfully interpreted the zeroanaphora, however, it fails to cover the antecedentless anaphora and ambiguousanaphora. The Conceptual Reference Point Theory and Current Discourse SpaceTheory can interpret the antecedentless anaphora and ambiguous anaphora becauseboth of the two theories emphasize the prominence of the entities instead of theconsistency of syntactic rules. The dynamic aspect of the reference point and currentdiscourse space help interpret the antecedentless anaphora and ambiguous anaphora.The antecedent of the pronoun in the antecedentless anaphora and ambiguousanaphora is out of surface level of language, which is activated in the interlocutors'mental representation. In the process of analysis, the pronoun acts as the referencepoint in the dominion of reference point or the anchor in the current discourse space.The context is the dominion of the reference point or current discourse space, and thepotential antecedent is the prominent one that is activated by the referencepoint/anchor in the dominion of reference point/current discourse space. The referencepoint and the anchor are not set. Once the reference point/anchor fulfills its function,it recedes into the background in favor of a new one for reaching another target,which helps clarify the antecedent of antecedentless anaphora and ambiguousanaphora.The interpretation of anaphoric expressions in anaphoric repair, which is oftenneglected in the study of anaphora, proceeds on the basis of Accessibility Theory,Langacker's Conceptual Reference Point Theory and Current Discourse Space Theorywithin the Cognitive Grammar. The exploration of anaphoric repair can enhance theunderstanding of anaphora.As a further study, the thesis first makes a statistic study of the surface anaphoraand deep anaphora in Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice. The data shows thatsurface anaphora enjoys higher frequency than deep anaphora and the result showsthat people tend to make communication an "effortless" process. Then the authorexamines the distributions of different anaphoric expressions in the first five chaptersof Pride and Prejudice, which indicates that pronouns in spoken English enjoy higherpercentage while nouns in written English are more frequent in use. The differencesresult from the basic difference between spoken English and written English. Afterthat, the thesis checks one written text (Appendix II) and one spoken text (Appendix I)to confirm the result.The thesis has its significance both in theory and in practice. In theory, the thesisinterprets anaphora on the basis of classification, upsetting the status quo of analyzinganaphora generally. What's more, the author proposes her cognitive approach ofunderstanding deep anaphora on the basis of cognitive theories. The approach coversdeep anaphora, the antecedent of which is out of surface level of language and isprominent in the conceptualizers' mind. Last but not least, the anaphoric expressionsin anaphoric repair, which are often ignored in the analysis of anaphora, areinterpreted to enrich the trajectories of anaphoric establishment and to examine itsbasic model. In practice, most of the examples are from famous English novels andthe analysis of the deep anaphora in these examples can cast light on theunderstanding of deep anaphora in English novels. Besides, the statistic study canhelp the conceptualizers employ the correct anaphoric expressions in written forms orspoken forms.