Realization Of Coherence In Metaphorical Discourse

This purpose of this article is to investigate the realization of metaphorical discourse coherence in terms of relevance theory. Discourse coherence has long been a focus of concern in the field of discourse analysis since it has to do with every aspect of how and why a passage can be considered as a discourse. Previous studies on coherence from different perspectives have contributed greatly to our understanding, but it is not the whole story; there are many unsolved problems in studying coherence just from semantics or pragmatics. Since the prosperity of cognitive linguistics, it arouses lots of attention paid to the study coherence from the cognitive perspective.This article is an attempt to explore the process of realizing coherence from a pragmatic and cognitive perspective. It is hypothesized that the realization of coherence is closely related with metaphorical understanding. So it carries out the study from the recognition of metaphor and then the prerequisite and aim of understanding metaphors will be analyzed. In addition, we will elaborate the speaker and the hearer's contribution on metaphorical discourse understanding. At last, both external and internal factors which influence coherence would receive specification.The theoretical foundation of this paper comes from Relevance Theory—a cognitive pragmatics theory proposed by Sperber & Wilson. The Ostensive-inferential model would be the theoretical framework, and some vital concepts such as optimal relevance and mutual manifestness would assist to construct the whole article.The article will be mainly divided into five parts, chapter one is the introduction, which mainly focuses on the purpose of study. In chapter two, the concept of coherence and the relationship between cohesion and coherence would be redefined based on the previous studies of coherence. And then Relevance Theory as the theoretical background and ostensive-inferential theory as the theoretical framework of this thesis will be presented in chapter three. The core of this thesis is chapter four; the realization is the process of metaphorical understanding both contributed by speaker and hearer. In addition, the factors, both external and internal, influencing on coherence in metaphorical discourse would be analyzed. The last part is the conclusion.