A Pragmatic Study on the Correspondence beween the Content of Discourse and Anaphoric Expressions, with Special Reference to the Levels of Information Sharing among Dialogue Participants

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K00542
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 02060:Linguistics-related
• Research Institution: Yamaguchi Prefectural University
• Principal Investigator: Nishida Koichi 山口県立大学, 国際文化学部, 教授 (80326454)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-04-01 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: 談話照応 / 代名詞 / 定名詞句 / 不定名詞句 / ことわざ / 慣習 / 情報共有 / 転用

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This research discuss four classes of expressions used for discourse anaphora, i.e. pronouns, definite noun phrases, indefinite noun phrases and proverbs. Pronouns are grammatical anaphoric expressions where "grammatical" means that speaker and hearer can use them without the world knowledge; they can be used with the minimum context shared by speaker and hearer, possibly one sentence. The other classes of anaphoric expressions are more or less pragmatic in nature, and depend on the world knowledge. Anaphoric definites require the sharing of longer contexts between speaker and hearer, one paragraph, for example. The anaphoric use of indefinites and proverbs follows the convention by which the topic referent is seen as an instance of the well-known cases. Anaphoric indefinites are available if they express the general properties of the topic referents. Anaphoric proverbs express the role of the topic referent in the context as the one in a typical situation shared by speaker and hearer.

Free Research Field

言語学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

照応の機能を備えた代名詞と定名詞句とは違い、不定名詞句やことわざには、それ自体には照応に関わる意味がないが、主題の指示対象を周知の事物の一例とする慣習に従い照応的に使うことができる。従来、話し手と聞き手は文法的な表現を作り、理解する人とされるだけだが、文法から導かれない慣習的用法を共有した言語使用者の集団は、単なる話し手と聞き手を離れ、言語コミュニティの市民と言える。本来、非照応的な表現を照応に転用することは、市民としての言語運用であり、照応的な不定名詞句やことわざは、当該コミュニティで等しく期待される規範を表す。本研究の社会的意義は、慣習的表現から市民が社会参加する方法に着手したことである。