A Review of Cognitive Model: Experiments of Scalar Implicature

Si LIU, Huangmei LIU

Abstract


Experimental pragmatic studies focus on the cognitive processing models of scalar implicature (a general conversational implicature). The “[neo]-Gricean,” Levinson, infers that the cognitive processing model of general conversational implicature is a process of cancellation of one literal meaning in the general conversational implicature in terms of a “stereotypical relation”, which he calls “default model”. However, the “post-Gricean” infers that the processing follows the “context-driven model”, which holds that the literal meaning is only a stimulus to the hearer; it is the context that people depend on to process the conversational implicature. Countless experimental studies have been conducted to find a conclusion, but this issue is still unresolved. Another valuable inference about the cognitive processing model should be that the cognitive processing of contextual meaning is a dynamic interactive process among language, ad hoc, and mental contexts. It is completed by the interaction of various brain mechanisms with the surrounding neural systems as bridges, which are a holistic, dynamic, complicated process. 


Keywords


Scalar implicature; Cognitive processing; Default reasoning model; Context-driven model; Dynamic system

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References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/n

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