A Study On The Application Of Cognitive Context In Discourse Comprehension

Context refers to language environment. The concept of context has a verybroad currency (in social anthropology, linguistics, philosophy, history and so forth),and its strong analytic frameworks focusing on assorted aspects of context have beencontributed by researchers working in these fields.As an important term, context has a powerful impact on communication andexerts great influence on the generation and interpretation of utterance. The study ofcontext from the traditional approach such as "situation of context" proposed byMalinowski (1923) and "register" by Halliday (1985) mainly emphasizes thefunctions of the concrete contextual factors from the static angle and ignores thefunctions of mental activities of human beings in communication. Cognitive context,put forward by Sperber and Wilson in their book Relevance: Communication andCognition, is a concept that is different from the traditional context. It is a newapproach to context based on a general view of cognition. It draws central attentionto the role of contextual inference and provides the powerful explanation for thenature of context from the dynamic point of view. Cognitive context is regarded as apsychological construct made up of a set of assumptions that have to be establishedand developed in the course of interaction of communicators. Understanding eachdiscourse needs different contextual factors, so the hearer is supposed to constructnew context with the discourse proceeding interpretation. Consequently, context isdescribed as chosen and dynamic. Cognitive context stresses the functions ofpsychological activities of human being in the process of communication from thedynamic angle that accords with the nature of communication. Through theexploration of the context theory and the comparison between traditional andcognitive context, the main features of cognitive context can be concluded as thefollows:2) Cognitive context is dynamic rather than static.3) Cognitive context is a psychological construct rather than a combination ofconcrete contextual factors.4) Cognitive context is selected and constructed in the course ofcommunication rather than given or determined beforehand.5) The selection and construction of cognitive context is conditioned anddirected by relevance.Since relevance is defined and characterized in terms of contextual effects andprocessing effort, so it is a context-dependent notion and in relevance theory (RThenceforth) context plays an important role. The main claim of RT is that humancommunication crucially creates an expectation of optimal relevance, that is, anexpectation on the part of the hearer that his attempt at interpretation will yieldadequate contextual effects at minimal processing cost. In this process cognitivecontext plays an important role. Cognitive context is constituted by the newinformation combined with an adequately selected set of background assumptions inthe memory of the deductive device. However, not any arbitrary subset of the totalset of assumptions, which is available to be handed, might be selected as context.Just as Sperber and Wilson remark: "The organization of the individual'sencyclopedic memory, and the mental activity in which he is engaged, limit the classof potential context from which an actual context can be chosen at any giventime."(S&W 1995:138). For all communicators there is an initial context, basicallyconsisting of previous utterances. This context has to be extended and constructed inthe search for relevance in the process of communication. Hearers construct thecontext in three main directions: (a) previous utterances;(b) encyclopedicknowledge;(c) adding information to context. The goal of reaching an optimal levelof relevance can condition the selection and construction of context.Discourse comprehension can be viewed as the communication between thereader and discourse, so it follows the relevance theory. It is an ostensive-inferentialpsycho-linguistic process: the reader starts with a set of linguistic symbols(ostensive stimuli) that have been chosen by the writer to represent the thoughts thathe wishes to express;it ends when the reader has interpreted as much of the writer'sintended meaning as is relevant to them through inference. If lacking the rightcontextual assumptions, the reader would fail to achieve successful understanding ofthe discourse.Cognitive context provides a new initiative for the study of discoursecomprehension. It emphasizes the cognitive property of comprehension. Armed bythe cognitive context, the comprehension of discourse not only need selecting theright contextual assumptions but also need the reader to construct his cognitivecontext during the reading process. And the selection and the construction isgoverned by relevance. Based on the theoretical exploration and the sample analysisthe thesis has made a comparison between the application of cognitive context andtraditional context to discourse comprehension. As for the application of the reader'scognitive context to discourse comprehension, it is found out that the followingpoints have certain impact on it:1) The writer's communicative intention constrains the selection and theconstruction of reader's cognitive context.2) The reader's cognitive environment constrains the selection andconstruction of his cognitive context.3) The reader's encyclopedic entries and cultural background knowledge canhelp the selection and construction of the reader's cognitive context.At the same way, cognitive context sheds a new light on reading teachingpractice. It emphasizes the cognitive property of reading teaching. Armed by thistheory, we should take not only the discourse into consideration, but also thepsychological activity of the students in reading process. The reading process shouldbe considered as an interaction between the students' lexical, encyclopedic andbackground knowledge of his cognitive context and the information of the discourse.During this process, the students does not need to understand the text word by word,but in order to search for relevance they need to combine the new information withan adequately selected background assumptions to establish his cognitive context.Therefore, the successful reading is a dynamic process, which makes specialdemands for students. And the cognitive context is a comprehensive guideline for it.In conclusion the significance of this research lies in cognitive context to theempirical application of discourse comprehension, both theoretically andpedagogically.