近二十年搭桥照应研究的回顾与思考

A Critical Review of Two Decades of Research on Bridging Inferences

近二十来国内外学者从各个领域对搭桥照应进行了研究和解释,取得了丰硕的成果。但各种研究都存在其缺陷和漏洞。纵向比较而言,分段式语篇表征理论(SDRT)采用语义学和语用学之所长,为搭桥照应的消解机制提供了一个较为全面的视角,解决了其它理论所不能解决的问题。但这一理论对搭桥照应的解释仍存在两个严重缺陷:其一,语篇关系的定义和分类标准不明确;其二,对于语篇关系在质和量上的级差性,以及这种差异性对语篇连贯的影响,SDRT没有给出充分的理据。

There has been a considerable amount of research on bridging in various fields. Although these studies are fruitful, there are still some limitations with each of them. The approach to bridging in SDRT provides the most exten- sive basis for drawing bridging inferences in an interplay of linguistic and contextual knowledge to explain much of the otherwise unsolved linguistic phenomena. However, in order to be more persuasive, this theory needs to be improved in two aspects. A clear definition and succinct criteria for the categorization of each rhetoric relation need to be estab- lished. Additionally, the qualitative and quantitative differences in rhetoric relations and the influence on the coher- ence of the utterance need to be proved systematically.