On The Dm Model Of Discourse Coherence Based On Palmer's Discourse Scenarios Theory

Earlier discourse coherence studies stress on obvious cohesive devices, contextual and social factors. Then many cognitive concepts are brought into discourse coherence analysis and discourses are seen as dynamic processes of meaning construction. Cognitive linguists devote themselves into exploring the production and understanding of discourses from cognitive perspective. With the rise of interface studies of culture, cognition and language, Gary·B, Palmer puts forwards Cultural Linguistics, and its discourse scenarios theory(DST) entails the cultural and interactive dimension of discourse studies, providing a new perspective for discourse coherence studies. Based on the cultural and interactive perspective implicated in DST, we try to explore another alternative model of discourse coherence.Palmer applies schemas and images activated between speakers and listeners into discourse analysis to construct discourse scenarios, which is regarded as an access to explore discourse coherence. He points out that the notion of scenario, different from concepts of context or situation, is a culturally defined cognitive concept, established on the basis of cognitive models or schemas and concludes that DST inherently has cognitive and cultural features. But we think that to some extent, DST only emphasizes on image schemas activated in discourse scenarios so that it overlooks the cognitive tool by which these image schemas can be decoded in order to get coherent discourses. Conceptual metaphor theory(CMT) is one of our basic and significant cognitive means to understand the world. Thus, CMT is introduced into DST to enrich its cognitive motivation and to provide it with an interpretation mechanism, and then the DM Model of discourse coherence is established. In order to examine the feasibility and effectiveness of the DM Model, we take the short story of A Rose for Emily as an example. According to the analyses, the DM Model is proved to pay attention to the role played by culture and the interaction between culture and cognition in discourse coherence issues.The thesis consists of five chapters. In Chapter One, the rationales of the study, research objectives and significance will be introduced; In Chapter Two, the previous studies of discourse coherence are presented and analyzed; Chapter Three is our theoretical framework, which is based on DST complemented by CMT to construct the DM Model of discourse coherence; In Chapter Four, the DM Model is demonstrated by taking the narrative of A Rose for Emily as an example; Chapter Five includes the conclusion, the summary of findings, limitations and suggestions.