Discourse Coherence, Cognitive Interpretations

Coherence is a fundamental but controversial concept in discourse analysis. In the past several years, linguists have explored coherence from different perspectives, as a result, different new terms and their relevant definitions, and various theories about it have come into being. Previous studies, both semantic and pragmatic, have contributed a great deal to our understanding of coherence. However, they all suffer from their weaknesses. The common characteristics of previous studies has not focus on the cognitive feature of coherence constructing which necessary and worthwhile.Coherence can be mainly studied in the framework of Relevance theory, proposed by D.Sperber and D.Wilson who proposed Ostensive-Inferential Communication Model, which is applied as the essential theoretical framework for the present research. This thesis aims at investigating coherence in the framework and exploring how discourse producers and receivers make contributions to coherence in the dynamic process of communication.This thesis also attempts to deal with coherence from the perspective of schema theory. Schema theory that interprets coherence from a new angle is based on the interactive comprehension which suggests that receivers process texts by using information provided simultaneously from several different sources.This thesis shows interpreting coherence from cognitive perspective is more effective than previous approaches, not only laying more emphasis on the nature of coherence, but also suggesting some ways for coherence interpretation. However, the present study is just a preliminary step in the inquiry of coherence from a cognitive perspective, though it is of theoretical and practical significance to some degree. The study should be extended and specified afterwards.