Week 8: The Nature of Reference in Text and Discourse

Reference is the symbolic relationship that a linguistic expression has with the concrete object or abstraction it represents. Reference is the relationship of one linguistic expression to another, in which one provides the information necessary to interpret the other. The term reference can be taken out of discussions of lexical meaning and reserved for that function whereby speakers/writers indicate, via the use of a linguistic expression, the entities they are talking/writing about. The concept that interest the discourse analyst is not that of correct (true) reference, but successful reference. Successful reference depends on the hearer’s identifying, for the purposes of understanding the current linguistic message, the speaker’s intended referent, on the basis of the referring expression used. Whatever the form of the referring expression, its referential function depends on the speaker’s intention on the particular occasion of use.

The current section talks about the nature of reference in text and discourse analysis.

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