Determination Between Character Dialogue And Their Relationship From The Perspective Of Cognitive Context

Cognitive context is the imperative prerequisite for ostensive-inferential communicativeprocess. It exists in the form of a series of assumptions in communicators’ mind whichprovides communicators with premise for arriving at optimal relevance and realizingcommunicative purpose. By the action of cognitive context, the speaker undertakes ostensiveduty and the hearer carries out inferential mission. When the cognitive context on the twosides is matching with each other, the communication is fulfilled without a hitch.The dialogue between different characters cannot dispense with the function of cognitivecontext; meanwhile by means of constant communication between characters, theirrelationship change and are determined dynamically. Consequently, cognitive context servesas a link to study character dialogue and their relationship. The character dialogue and theirconfused relationship are the most remarkable in detective fiction. Therefore, representativecharacter dialogues are selected from detective fiction Death on the Nile to make a qualitativeanalysis, attempting to determine character relationship through character dialogue from theperspective of cognitive context. The detailed analysis of character dialogue and theirrelationship is conducted under ostensive-inferential model which touches upon both thespeaker and the hearer. By analyzing character dialogue, the suspected is ruled out and themurderer is determined, so that character relationship is clear and distinguishable. This thesispresents a cognitive pragmatic way to make research on character dialogue and theirrelationship in detective fiction.