Psycholinguistics Perspective Proposition The Discourse Coherence Function

Proposition is an important concept in psycholinguistics. Psycholinguists suggest that propositions, as the mental representation of meaning in memory, the basic form of knowledge representation, as well as the mental processing unit of text production and comprehension, play a significant role in the production and comprehension of the text.Some psycholinguists further divide propositions into explicit propositions and implicit propositions. Explicit propositions are the meaning representation expressed by the text, while implicit propositions are the"missing links"between explicit propositions. Implicit propositions can also be divided into automatically made implicit propositions and inferable ones. The thesis emphasizes the importance of the connection and integration between explicit propositions and implicit propositions in constructing textual coherence, and attempts to make a detailed explanation of the process of the textual coherence construction and forming, in terms of the two kinds of propositions.In the whole process of textual coherence construction, propositions perform three important functions. First, the propositions, which form knowledge representation, are the cognitive basis for textual coherence. Second, explicit propositions and implicit propositions integrate with each other through the relation between concepts and events, and construct local coherence horizontally. Meanwhile, explicit propositions and implicit propositions hierarchically and vertically construct textual topic, thus realize the global textual coherence.