A Study Of Discourse Coherence From Cognitive Perspective And Implications To The Teaching Of College English Writing

Coherence is the base for comprehending and composing a discourse, which has been a hot topic in the past thirty years. Scholars have studied discourse coherence from different perspectives. On the whole, these studies put overemphasis on the formal and surface elements of language itself such as cohesive devices of a discourse, but insufficient emphasis on the external elements for discourse coherence such as cognitive and cultural context. The emergence and development of Cognitive Linguistics broaden people's view into the cognitive world and establish a good alignment between substantial linguistic forms of a discourse and external cognitive elements that influence discourse coherence, which helps to achieve an interpretation of discourse coherence both at the surface level and at the deep level. Yet domestic studies of discourse coherence from perspective of Cognitive Linguistics are quite far from enough. And studies from perspective of cognitive iconicity and analysis of cognitive world are even rarely carried out. So this thesis attempts to study discourse coherence from the perspective of Iconicity Theory and analysis of cognitive world within Cognitive Linguistics.This thesis mainly adopts the qualitative method to study discourse coherence. The author mainly explores and answers the following questions: Why a coherent discourse can exist without cohesion and why cohesive devices cannot assure discourse coherence Why sometimes discourse coherence can not be interpreted only considering the internal elements of a discourse itselfA coherent discourse can exist without cohesion because there is a mental coherent discourse in cognitive world, with which the linguistic world should accord and through which the linguistic world accords with the real world, because of the principle of iconicity. Iconicity emphasizes that linguistic expressions reflect cognition of the real world. When people apply iconicity to the interpretation of discourse coherence, if the arrangement of information in a discourse accords with the way they recognize and conceptualize the world, they can consider the discourse as coherent. If not, they cannot consider the discourse as coherent, even with many cohesive devices. Therefore, discourse coherence is achieved mainly through the coherence in a mental discourse, not necessarily through cohesive devices. Such mental coherence is essential for the interpretation of a discourse. Iconicity falls into three types: imagic iconicity, diagrammatic iconicity, and metaphorical iconicity. Imagic iconicity makes the discourse coherent from oral iconicity and visual iconicity. Diagrammatic iconicity achieves the discourse coherent through four types of iconicity: sequence iconicity, distance iconicity, quantity iconicity, and markedness iconicity. Metaphor iconicity plays an important role in the discourse coherence at a deeper level. Coherence in mental discourse is achieved through cognitive world that connects the linguistic forms and the real world, and helps construct a dynamic relation between them and the processing activities in minds. The universal cognitive world influences coherence in mental discourse and is essential to understand and produce a discourse. Cognitive world works well for discourse coherence by filling in the missing information in a discourse, interpreting determining pronouns, and Sloppy Use"the + Nominal Part(NP)". It can successfully connect the elements in the discourse with the cognitive background in minds. It helps us have a deeper interpretation of discourse analysis in a dynamic way.Sometimes it is not enough to interpret the coherence of the discourse only considering the internal elements of a discourse itself, because language is shaped by interactive embodiment and cognitive processing. In experience the world, human activities are branded with culture profoundly. Generally speaking, different language is iconic to different culture and affects the degree of iconicity between language and reality. And different cultural background affects human cognitive style and cognitive world. Therefore, during the study of discourse coherence, the cultural factors need to be integrated into consideration.On the basis of theory analysis and illustration with specific and typical examples, the author finds some implications to the teaching of college English writing. The teaching of college English writing should pay attention to students'embodiment, having them experience the similarities and differences of writing between Chinese and English and adjusting their cognitive world. Teaching college English writing can adopt a process-genre approach.And it is divided into six parts. Chapter One presents the background of the study. It also puts forward three research questions, and deals with research methods, purpose, significance, and organization of this thesis. Chapter Two reviews the previous studies of discourse coherence and Cognitive Linguistics. Chapter Three discusses discourse coherence from the perspective of Iconicity Theory within Cognitive Linguistics. Chapter Four elaborates discourse coherence from the approach of analysis of cognitive world. Chapter Five tries to find the implications to teaching of college English writing. Chapter Six is the conclusion which summarizes the main content of this thesis, shows the findings, points out the limitations of the study and makes suggestions for further studies.