A Study Of Pragmatic Inference From The Perspective Of Cognitive Metonymy

Pragmatic inference is an important part of pragmatic studies. It is based on the actual use of language in communication. Hence it plays an important role in human communication. A great many scholars at home and abroad have researched into pragmatic inference from different perspectives and have achieved a lot, such as Searle's Indirect Speech Act Theory (1975), Grice's Cooperative Principle (1975), Levinson's neo-Gricean pragmatic inference mechanism (1983) and Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theory (1995). They claim that the identification of the communicative intention of linguistic acts requires inference on the part of the hearer. However, the fact that hearers usually draw the necessary inferences very quickly and effortlessly is not satisfactorily explained and these accounts do not offer a systematic description of the inference patterns involved and of their cognitive grounding. The author's analyses of pragmatic inference are based upon the cognitive theory of metonymy with the belief that the shortcomings of the traditional approach can be overcome by means of human metonymic thinking mode.With the development of cognitive linguistics, metonymy has received great attention recently and is primarily viewed as a kind of mental mapping. Metonymy is more fundamental, namely, language is metonymic by nature (Radden and Kovesces 1999). As Lakoff and Johnson (1980) put it, people can speak and think metonymically, which allows us to focus more specifically on salient aspects of what is being referred to, such as a person, and an object or an event. Metonymic concepts are part of the ordinary, everyday way we think and act as well as talk. In other words, metonymy is a crucial mode of thinking and an important means of perceiving the physical world. Because of the fact that metonymic language is an important thinking mode of human beings, we can apply metonymic mechanism to interpreting pragmatic inference. Scholars at home and abroad have done insufficient research on the effect of metonymy on pragmatic inference except for the relevant research by Panther and Thornburg (1999), Zhang Hui (2002), Li Yongzhong (2004) and so on.This thesis attempts to analyze the effect of metonymy on pragmatic inference on two levels: referential level and speech-act level, which is based on the classification of metonymy by Panther and Thornburg (1998). In light of the framework of metonymic theories by Radden and Kovecses (1999), we turn to ICM, part-whole and part-part relations and metonymic operating mechanisms for the analysis of pragmatic inference on the referential level. As for the speech-act level, we adopt the scenario theory, specifically Panther and Thornburg's (2003) Action Scenario and the three types of speech act metonymy. It is revealed by our study that metonymy has some explanatory power for pragmatic inference, acting as a complement to the traditional approach.This study not only provides a more satisfactory explanation of pragmatic inference, but it also helps English learners to get a better understanding of textual cohesion and coherence. In addition, it sheds some light on the teaching of English listening and writing.