Francis Cornish | CLLE-ERSS, CNRS UMR 5263 and Université de Toulouse-Le-Mirail
The traditional definition of anaphora in purely co-textual terms as a relation between two co-occurring expressions is in wide currency in theoretical and descriptive studies of the phenomenon. Indeed, it is currently adopted in on-line psycholinguistic experiments on the interpretation of anaphors, and is the basis for all computational approaches to automatic anaphor resolution (see Mitkov 2002). Under this conception, the anaphor, a referentially-dependent expression type, requires “saturation” by an appropriate referentially-autonomous, lexically-based expression — the antecedent — in order to achieve full sense and reference.
However, this definition needs to be re-examined in the light of the ways in which real texts operate and are understood, where the resulting picture is rather different. The article aims to show that the co-textual conception is misconceived, and that anaphora is essentially an integrative, discourse-creating procedure involving a three-way relationship between an “antecedent trigger”, an anaphoric predication, and a salient discourse representation. It is shown that it is only in terms of a dynamic interaction amongst the interdependent dimensions of text and discourse, as well as context, that the true complexity of anaphoric reference may be satisfactorily described. The article is intended as a contribution to the broader debate within the pages of this journal and elsewhere between the formalist and the functionalist accounts of language structure and use.
Todisco, Emanuela, Roberta Rocca & Mikkel Wallentin
2023. Aqueix Caught in the Middle. A Demonstrative Choice Task Study of Catalan Demonstratives. Probus 35:1 ► pp. 31 ff.
Jacques, Marie-Paule & Luca Pallanti
2021. Gérer la cohérence textuelle sur le plan structurel : analyse d’écrits d’étudiants en L1. Langue française N° 211:3 ► pp. 131 ff.
Oger, Kimberly
2019. A Study of Non-Finite Forms of Anaphoric do in the Spoken BNC. Anglophonia :28
Jones, Katy
2018. ‘A man who revels in his own ignorance, racism and misogyny’: Identifiable referents trump indefinite grammar. Functional Linguistics 5:1
Shor, Leon
2018. Discourse-anadeictic uses of manner demonstratives: A view from spoken Israeli Hebrew. Folia Linguistica 52:2 ► pp. 383 ff.
Crompton, Peter
2017. Complex anaphora with this: variation between three written argumentative genres. Corpora 12:1 ► pp. 115 ff.
Kroon, Caroline
2017. Textual Deixis and the ‘Anchoring’ Use of the Latin Pronoun hic. Mnemosyne 70:4 ► pp. 585 ff.
Cornish, Francis & Anne Salazar Orvig
2016. A critical look at the notion ‘pro-form’. Evidence from indexical markers, spoken discourse and (French) child language. Language Sciences 54 ► pp. 58 ff.
Çokal, Derya, Patrick Sturt & Fernanda Ferreira
2014. Deixis:ThisandThatin Written Narrative Discourse. Discourse Processes 51:3 ► pp. 201 ff.
Bordet, Geneviève
2011. « This » comme marqueur privilégié du genre : le cas des résumés de thèses. Discours :9
Johnsen, Laure Anne
2010. Les pronoms « neutres » et leur référence à des procès en français parlé. Linx :62-63 ► pp. 153 ff.
CORNISH, FRANCIS
2009. Le rôle des anaphores dans la mise en place des relations de cohérence dans le discours: l'hypothèse de J.R. Hobbs. Journal of French Language Studies 19:2 ► pp. 159 ff.
Cornish, Francis
2010. Indexicaux, discours et mémoire discursive : ce que les premiers révèlent du second et de la troisième. Linx :62-63 ► pp. 111 ff.
Cornish, Francis
2011. ‘Strict’ anadeixis, discourse deixis and text structuring. Language Sciences 33:5 ► pp. 753 ff.
Cornish, Francis
2013. On the dual nature of the Functional Discourse Grammar model: context, the language system/language use distinction, and indexical reference in discourse. Language Sciences 38 ► pp. 83 ff.
2015. Procédures référentielles indexicales, relations rhétoriques et structuration du discours1. Discours :17
CORNISH, FRANCIS
2017. SN démonstratifs et anadeixis: sens ‘spatial’, ou valeurs tributaires d'une stratégie pragmatique potentielle?. Journal of French Language Studies 27:2 ► pp. 215 ff.
Cornish, Francis
2017. Indexicals and L2 Learners’ Metadiscursive Awareness. In Essential Competencies for English-medium University Teaching [Educational Linguistics, 27], ► pp. 65 ff.
Cornish, Francis
2021. L’anaphore revisitée : fonctionnements discursifs et interactionnels. Langue française N° 210:2 ► pp. 9 ff.
Cornish, Francis
2022. Text, discourse, context: A meta-trilogy for discourse analysis. Journal of Pragmatics 199 ► pp. 91 ff.
Durand, Jacques
2007. Pour une analyse des énoncés en contexte : théories et pratique. Anglophonia Caliban/Sigma :11 (22) ► pp. 21 ff.
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