说话人用意的认知加工机制:基于误解分析的证据

Cognitive Mechanism of Speaker Intent Processing: Evidence from the Analysis of Misunderstanding

研究说话人意义的表达和理解是语用学主要理论的基本目标,然而相关理论研究对言语交际中有时会出现的一种说话人意义及其误解现象——即听话人主观认定说话人发出特定话语的背后具有特定的用意——缺乏充分的解释。笔者拟在关联理论的指导下,借鉴现有研究,对这种类型的说话人意义及其误解现象加以较为系统的探讨,剖析说话人用意理解的语用认知过程,揭示相关误解现象产生的社会心理理据,从而进一步论证话语理解者的主体性,彰显心理因素在听话人理解话语时基于最佳关联假定建构语境这一过程中的引导作用,强调交际者关于交际情境的感知的触发作用,进一步完善基于关联理论关于说话人意义及其误解的语用解释。

A fundamental goal of pragmatics is to study the communication of speaker meaning. This study addresses a new facet of speaker meaning, namely speaker intent or motive in terms of its processing mechanism. Drawing on the analysis of a less discussed type of misunderstanding,i, e, the hearer assigns an extra meaning, namely the intent of an utterance, to the speaker＇ s utterance, despite the fact that the latter does not intend so, the author attempts a relevance-theoretic account of the ＂miscommunication＂ phenomenon by probing into the pragma-cognitive process of the meaning-making tendency and revealing the socio-psychological underpinnings of the misinterpretation concerned and the impact of situational context. It is hoped that this study will contribute to the understanding of intent-type speaker meaning in interpersonal communication and highlight the role of psychological factors in directing context construction and that of situation perception in triggering intent inference in the search for optimal relevance, thus bringing more subtlety and operability to the relevance-theoretic account of verbal communi- cation.