Fukumura Kumiko, van Gompel Roger P G, Pickering Martin J
School of Psychology, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2010 Sep;63(9):1700-15. doi: 10.1080/17470210903490969. Epub 2010 Feb 1.
Most theories of reference assume that a referent's saliency in the linguistic context determines the choice of referring expression. However, it is less clear whether cognitive factors relating to the nonlinguistic context also have an effect. We investigated whether visual context influences the choice of a pronoun over a repeated noun phrase when speakers refer back to a referent in a preceding sentence. In Experiment 1, linguistic mention as well as visual presence of a competitor with the same gender as the referent resulted in fewer pronouns for the referent, suggesting that both linguistic and visual context determined the choice of referring expression. Experiment 2 showed that even when the competitor had a different gender from the referent, its visual presence reduced pronoun use, indicating that visual context plays a role even if the use of a pronoun is unambiguous. Thus, both linguistic and nonlinguistic information affect the choice of referring expression.
大多数指称理论认为，所指对象在语言语境中的显著性决定了指称表达的选择。然而，与非语言语境相关的认知因素是否也有影响，这一点尚不太明确。我们研究了在说话者回指前一句中的所指对象时，视觉语境是否会影响代词相对于重复名词短语的选择。在实验1中，与所指对象性别相同的竞争者在语言提及以及视觉上的出现，导致用于所指对象的代词减少，这表明语言和视觉语境都决定了指称表达的选择。实验2表明，即使竞争者与所指对象性别不同，其视觉出现也会减少代词的使用，这表明即使代词的使用是明确的，视觉语境也会起作用。因此,语言和非语言信息都会影响指称表达的选择。
