The Cognitive Role of Reference in Meaning Construction

Abstract

This paper seeks to cognitively determine the role of reference in the meaning construction process through the application of Mental Spaces Theory in Shaw’s ‘Man and Superman’ and ‘Candida’. It also attempts to accurately clarify the matching between the linguistic expressions and the cognitive processes operated by reference in meaning construction. Further, this paper aims at investigating the reason(s) of prioritising some language forms in reference and statistically presenting the prevalence of those language devices in the plays’ usage. The study has discovered that reference had been one of the crucial triggers of the Mental Spaces Theory advent and evolution as without reference, meaning construction would have faced failure in any communication. Meaning construction is entirely interlocutors’ mental process, reference is the language realisation and conception tool of those mental operations.