A Cognitive-pragmatic Study On The Functions Of Third Person Referential Forms

Studies on third person referential forms have attracted much attention inlinguistics in recent years. Many scholars have explored the functions of third personreferential forms from the perspectives of pragmatics, functional linguistics andsocial linguistics. Particularly, some scholars have a pilot study of them in cognitivelinguistics. New perspective as it has, the achievements tend to be not sufficient. Thepresent study, in light of the literature review, both abroad and at home, based onLangacker s Grounding Theories, sets up a cognitive analytical frame andsystematically explores the functions of third person referential forms in divergentcontextual situations from a cognitive-pragmatic perspective.The thesis chooses canonical data from the latest American sitcom The Big Bang(from Season1to5) to study the functions of third person referential forms. It isfound that the referent identification of a third person referential form is actually acognitive activity that people ground a special entity of a type into the immediatecircumstance. And meanwhile, in practical speech activities, the utilization ofdifferent third person referential forms will embody social status and identity of theparticipants and create empathetic or de-empathetic effects, that is, the reflection ofthe subjectivity of third person referential forms in shared mental space.Specifically, the study focuses on the anaphoric and cataphoric functions inendophoric context on one hand, and the deictic function in exophotic context on theother hand. In most cases, in anaphoric and cataphoric reference, a presupposition isrequired that the third person referential form must a related antecedent in thediscourse. However, in practical communicative activities, many special situationsare available whose construal has to be depended on the unique cognitivemechanism to locate the matching referents of third person referential forms. The cognitive frame of this thesis not only illustrates the prototypical case of endophoricreference but also makes a study of reference identification of the third personreferential forms which have more than one potential referents. In the meanwhile,the thesis gives an analysis of the reference identification of the third personreferential forms whose semantic structure changes or expands in anaphoric andextraphoric situations.Third person referential forms function as deixis when their referents cannot beidentified within text. Subjectivity is the essential attribute of deixis. Discourseparticipants will subconsciously treat themselves as center to encode and decode thedeixis and connect combination with circumstances. Due to the fact that third partyis the non-direct participant, this kind of property is particularly prominent.Person deixis is the common usage of third person deixis. This thesis based onthe analytical frame explains how the referent of a third person referential form isidentified by means of communicative background when there is zero referent forthe third person referential form in the current discourse frame. Besides, social deixisis an important component of third person deixis. In order to achieve successfulcommunication, third person social deixis is used to highlight the social identity andstatus and empathetic as well as de-empathetic effects are created at the same time.The purpose of this study lies in that it helps, in actual communication activities,with the referent identification of the third person referential forms which are theindirect discourse participation components, and analyses the cognitive factors of theusage of third person referential forms. Therefore, it contributes to the properinterpretation of psychological activities and the skillful conveying of them so that theultimate goal of communication success can be achieved.