An Analysis Of The Cognitive Process Of Indirect Anaphora

The research on anaphora has a long tradition and anaphora has been investigated from various perspectives within linguistics and psychology. Although many important insights and observations have come out of this work, there is yet until now no unified views on the interpretation of indirect anaphora which is a special branch of the anaphora system. Different from direct anaphora, the correct understanding of indirect anaphora encounters many difficulties and variables since there is no explicit anaphoric relation between the referring expression and its antecedent. Indirect anaphora can be divided, according to syntactical features, into nominal indirect anaphora, demonstrative indirect anaphora, and pronoun indirect anaphora. According to the degree of stereotypicality, the indirect anaphora can also be grouped into stereotypical and non-stereotypical ones.This paper aims to take a cognitive point of view to interpret the mental process of indirect anaphora , in which indirect anaphora is considered to refer to a psychologically prominent entity out of the surface level of language. Under this viewpoint, this paper will develop a cognitive exploration of indirect anaphora on the basis of frame theory put forward by Minsky and situation models (van Dijk & Kintsch). The frame represents a concept activated by a certain word or situation and it does not stand for a concrete entity but the abstraction of the categorical entity. The activation of frame can not actually fully activate slots but bring them to a semi-activation status. Therefore, we can assume that the appearance of the antecedent activates a prototypical frame, including numbers of related slots under semi-activation, when the referring expression in the following discourse indicates that a known situation is activated, and then this situation and the semi-activated slot by the antecedent form a kind of mapping. As a result, the corresponding slot gets instantiated and is thus fully activated. In this way, the stereotypical indirect anaphora can be naturally anchored.The frame theory can fully account for the stereotypical indirect anaphora. However, in the face of non-stereotypical indirect anaphora, the frame theory loses its due force for the fact that it deals with language from a static perspective. But non-stereotypical indirect anaphora can still be justifiably identified once the concepts of situation models and mental spaces are brought into play.The situation model is the mental representation of the situation or state being described through language form. It is the mental representation established in the working memory; and has dynamic, multiple, specific and predicting characteristics. The basic notion of mental spaces is that as the mental spaces are set up, they are structured and linked under pressure from grammar, context and culture. Mental spaces are small conceptual packets constructed as we think and talk for purposes of local understanding and action. They are very partial assemblies containing elements, and structured by frames and cognitive models. These conceptual packets are interconnected and can be modified as thought and discourse unfold. In the case of non-stereotypical indirect anaphora, at the time when the referring expression appears, the current model has both the tendencies to update and establish brand new model. The tendency to establish brand new model results from that the referential inconsistency counters the stereotypical relation existing in people's cognitive structure; the tendency to update the integrated model arises because the definite article"the"before the referring expressions presupposes the uniqueness, identifiability and familiarity of the referent, which will stop the reader or the hearer to totally discard updating sub-model and thus enables the trend of updating sub-model. Then influenced by the foregrounding factors, the final model ends up in an intermediate situation between updating model and establishing totally novel model, achieving successful interpretation.