The Study Of Pragmatic Enrichment Of Polysemy From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

Polysemy has always been a hot topic in the field of linguistic research.Previous researches have done a lot of studies from the perspective of traditional,pragmatics and cognitive linguistics.The present thesis attempts to narrow the research of polysemy to the study of pragmatic enrichment of polysemy.Under the framework of relevance theory,the present thesis tends to analyze cognitive mechanism of completion of pragmatic enrichment of polysemy in utterances.And then we attempt to establish a cognitive model of pragmatic enrichment of polysemy.Pragmatic enrichment of polysemy refers to the pragmatic inference process that is made by the hearer to understand the meanings of polysemy in the speaker's utterance in certain context.There are two types of pragmatic enrichment of polysemy:the pragmatic narrowing referring to a polysemic word which is used to convey a more specific sense than the encoded meaning,resulting in a restriction of the linguistically-specified denotation,and the pragmatic broadening referring to a polysemic word which is used to convey a more general sense,with consequent widening of the linguistically specified denotation.Sperber and Wilson introduce a term "cognitive context" to explain linguistic phenomena from the view of human's mind.And they regard communication as a kind of ostensive-inferential process,and emphasize the importance of ostension and inference in the course of completion of communication.Relevance,as the rationale in relevance theory,and a series of interrelated terms play important roles in analyzing many linguistic phenomena in communication,including the topic in this thesis:pragmatic enrichment of polysemy.Under the framework of relevance theory,we attempt to establish a cognitive model of pragmatic enrichment of polysmy.People's stored information and newly-present information overlap to mutual cognitive context which is the premise and base of pragmatic enrichment of polysemy in utterances.Based on people's mutual cognitive context,the hearer receives linguistic or non-linguistic ostensive stimuli to automatically enter inference process in which he or she will deal with interrelated information to figure out optimal relevance of polysemy in utterances.In relevance-theoretic comprehension procedure,the hearer will use optimal relevance to find the meaning of polysemy to satisfy his expectations,and he assumes that this is the speaker's meaning and dose not need more specific or exact information. Pragmatic broadening of polysemy happens.If not,he tries to make more processing efforts till he finds out the specific meaning of polysmy to satisfy his expectation. Pragmatic narrowing of polysemy happens.