A Cognitive-Functional Study Of Fuzzy Anaphora In English And Chinese Narratives

Since American scientist Lotfi Zadeh put forward the theory of “Fuzzy Sets” in 1965, fuzzy science theory has been extensively applied to philosophy, mathematics, natural sciences, social sciences, linguistics, etc. In recent decades, international and domestic scholars have been making abundant research on the fuzzy language. Anaphora is a classic topic in international and domestic linguistic studies as well. Scholars of different branches have been studying anaphora from varying perspectives. The development of anaphora study coincided with the development of linguistic studies. When linguists switched their focus from isolated sentences to discourse, scholars started to study anaphora beyond syntax, and do research from semantics, function, pragmatics and cognition perspectives. People are having increasingly insightful understanding of anaphora. Chinese scholars have made extensive and intensive study on anaphora in Chinese discourses.Meanwhile, the study of fuzzy anaphora, to be specific, the anaphora with fuzzy features, has not been paid due attention to. In this dissertation, we carried out research based on the previous studies. We made the systematic research on the fuzzy anaphora phenomenon by making literature analysis and application of the classic theory frames, etc. Theoretically, we explored the phenomenon by cognitive and functional approach.Our research subject is different from ambiguous anaphora of the traditional sense. We focus on the process of anaphora production in the discourse, and try to dig out how discourse is constructed. We use sample sentences collected from English and Chinese narratives, excluding the zero anaphora, improper anaphora due to addresser’s grammar mistakes and the fuzzy anaphora in broad sense, which are caused by the permanent movement of the physical world. We only study the anaphora, in which antecedents and anaphors have different referents.We take fuzzy anaphora as reflection of fuzzy feature of language, and take it as the common discourse phenomenon. We claim that the different kinds of fuzzy anaphora, which the relationships between antecedents and anaphors are different in fuzzy degree, perform certain cohesion and conceptual functions in the discourse. The premise of traditional anaphora study is co-reference, which is challenged by the existence of fuzzy anaphora. Traditional anaphora studies take anaphora as a kind of tool to achieve cohesion and coherence in discourse, and do not pay due attention to the inner structure of the tool. By studying fuzzy anaphora, we digged into the inner system of the discourse, exploring the discourse construction, conceptual processing and the process how semantic meanings are conveyed.The dissertation is composed of five interlocking parts. Literature review went through the history of international and domestic anaphora studies, fuzzy linguistic studies and fuzzy anaphora studies. We focused on the periodical development and made comments accordingly. Then, we focused on language’s unique characteristic ––fuzziness, and tried to figure out how language fuzziness came into being. We hold that when human beings are using language to explore the physical world, the mental world keeps interacting with the physical world. When people are categorizing the physical world by the tool of language, the fuzziness is the unavoidable result of the dynamic interaction. Based on this, we observed the fuzzy feature of anaphora from broad sense, and analyze the causes. In the next part, we started from the concept of “co-reference”, and defined fuzzy anaphora in narrow and specific sense. We categorized fuzzy anaphora according to the fuzzy degree of relationship between antecedents and anaphors.The hard core of the whole dissertation is the interpretation of fuzzy anaphora by cognitive approach. Our interpretation are based on two kinds of theories. The first part is the classic theories like “Accessibility Theory”, “Conceptual Reference Point Theory”, “Relevance Theory” and “Kuang-ling Frame Theory”. We applied these classic theories to our fuzzy anaphora study, not only to testify the logicality of our categorization, but also to testify the applicability of these theories. The second part is the theory structure based on Fauconnior’s “role/value” theory(1997) and complemented by “Spreading-activation Theory” and “Matching Principles”. Using this innovative theory structure, we illustrated how the concepts are conveyed and received in the discourse although antecedents and anaphors do not have the some referents. We illustrated the production processing and resolution process of fuzzy anaphora from both addresser and addressee prospect.Lastly, we studied and summarized the functions of fuzzy anaphora from discourse, pragmatic and rhetoric aspects.The novelty of our study is listed as below:Firstly, we studied fuzzy anaphora phenomenon systematically and take it as common discourse phenomenon. We illustrated the phenomenon in details according to the different degrees of fuzziness from different perspectives. We gave fuzzy anaphora due attention instead of taking it as a marginal phenomenon.Secondly, we took the “right-oriented” approach, which accords the natural direction of information flow in the discourse. We made innovative application of Fauconnior’s “role/value”theory frame, supplemented by the “Spreading-activation Theory” and “Matching Principle”, to reveal the conceptual connection mechanism of fuzzy anaphora. Our research is the complementary and development of cohesion and coherence study.Thirdly, scholars used to study anaphora, fuzzy language, cognition and textual function separately. As fuzzy anaphora is the integration of these elements, we studied them as an organized entity, and tried to explore the collaborative and interacting relationship between them.Lastly, our study is the complement and development of fuzzy language study. Both fuzzy anaphora and fuzzy reference are parts of fuzzy language study as they all study the indeterminacy of language when used in reference. Fuzzy anaphora concerns the reference relationship of two language symbols in the discourse, which is the preliminary of the whole reference process. The relationship between language symbols is the reflection of semantic relationship in cognition, therefore, it is more complicated. Therefore, the study of fuzzy anaphora brought enlightenment to the study of fuzzy reference and fuzzy language as well.