The goal of neuropragmatics is to reveal the brain machinery underlying context-appropriate language use or comprehension, with the aid of psychological and especially cognitive neuroscience techniques. Although it is a quite new research field, neuropragmatics has already made important advances concerning traditionally research topics in pragmatics such as presupposition, conversational implicature, pragmatic inference, and discourse anaphora. In order to let Chinese scholars grasp the latest research trends of neuropragmatics, this paper reviews some of the most important advances in the field of neuropragmatics in last decade, and reaches some preliminary research conclusions. These studies have tested whether there are psychological realities underlying those previously proposed pragmatic principles or hypothesis with the help of event-related potentials (ERPs) or neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The findings from those studies could enhance our understanding of the physiological and cognitive nature of many pragmatic phenomena.
Arts, A.,A. Maes, L. Noordman & C.Jansen.2011.Overspecification facilitates object identification [J]. Journal of Pragmatics 43(1): 361-374.
Bambini, V. 2010. Neuropragmatics: A forward [J]. Italian Journal of Linguistics (1): 1-20.
Barbey, A. K., R. Colom & J. Grafman. 2014. Neural mechanisms of discourse comprehension: A human lesion study [J]. Brain 137: 277-287.
Bašnáková, J., K. Weber, K. M. Petersson, J. van Berkum & P. Hagoort. 2014. Beyond the language given: The neural correlates of inferring speaker meaning[J]. Cerebral Cortex 24(10): 2572-2578.
Bott, L. A. & I. A. Noveck. 2004. Some utterances are underinformative: The onset and time course of scalar inferences [J]. Journal of Memory and Language 51(3): 437-457.
Breheny, R., H. J. Ferguson & N. Katsos. 2013. Investigating the time course of accessing conversational implicatures during incremental sentence interpretation [J]. Language and Cognitive Processes 28(4): 443-467.
Burkhardt, P. 2006. Inferential bridging relations reveal distinct neural mechanisms: Evidence from Event-related brain potentials [J]. Brain and Language 98: 159-168.
Chomsky, N. 1972. Deep structure, surface structure, and semantic interpretation [A]. In N.Chomsky (ed.). Studies in Semantics in Generative Grammar [C]. The Hague: Mouton: 69-119.
Cowles, H. W., M. Walenski & R. Kluender. 2007. Linguistic and cognitive prominence in anaphor resolution: Topic, contrastive focus and pronouns [J]. Topoi 26: 3-18.
Cowles, H. W. & V. S. Ferreira. 2011. The influence of topic status on written and spoken sentence production [J]. Discourse Processes 49: 1-28.
Domaneschi, F., P. Canal, V. Masia, E. L. Vallauri & V. Bambini. 2018. N400 and P600 modulation in presupposition accommodation: The effect of different trigger types[J]. Journal of Neurolinguistics 45: 13-35.
Engelhardt, P. E, K. G. D. Bailey & F. Ferreira. 2006. Do speakers and listeners observe the Gricean maxim of quantity [J]. Journal of Memory and Language 54: 554-573.
Engelhardt, P. E., S. B. Demiral & F. Ferreira. 2011. Over-specified referring expressions impair comprehension: An ERP study [J]. Brain and Cognition 77: 304-314.
Feng, W., Y. Wu, C. Jan, H. Yu, X. Jiang & X. Zhou. 2017. The effects of contextual relevance on pragmatic inference during conversation: An fMRI study[J]. Brain and Language 171: 52-61.
Fodor, J. A. 1983. The Modularity of Mind [M]. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Friederici, A. D. 2002. Towards a neural basis of auditory sentence processing [J]. Trends in Cognitive Science 6:78-84.
Friederici, A. D. 2011. The brain basis of language processing: From structure to function [J]. Physiological Review 91: 1357-1392.
Garrod, S.C. & A. J. Sanford. 1994. Resolving sentences in a discourse context [A]. In M. A. Gernsbacher (ed.).Handbook of Psycholinguistics [C]. New York: Academic Press: 675-698.
Grice, H. P. 1975. Logic and conversation [A]. In D. Davidson & G. Harman (eds.).The Logic of Grammar [C]. Encino: Dickenson.
Grodner, D. J., N. M. Klein, K. M. Carbary & M. K. Tanenhaus. 2010. “Some”, and possibly all, scalar inferences are not delayed: Evidence for immediate pragmatic enrichment[J]. Cognition 116: 42-55.
Hagoort, P. 2005. On Broca, brain and binding: A new framework [J]. Trends in Cognitive Science (9): 416-423.
Hagoort, P., L. Hald, M. Bastiaansen & K. M. Petersson. 2004. Integration of word meaning and world knowledge in language comprehension [J]. Science 304: 438-441.
Hagoort, P. & S. C. Levinson. 2014. Neuropragmatics [A]. In M. S. Gazzaniga & G. R. Mangun (eds.).The Cognitive Neurosciences (5th edn)[C] Cambridge: MIT Press.667-674.
Hirotani, M. & P. B. Schumacher. 2011. Context and topic marking affect distinct processes during discourse comprehension in Japanese [J]. Journal of Neurolinguistics (24): 276-292.
Huang, Y. T. & J. Snedeker. 2009. Online interpretation of scalar quantifiers: Insight into the semantics-pragmatics interface [J]. Cognitive Psychology 58: 376-415.
Hung, Y. C. & P. B. Schumacher. 2012. Topicality matters: Position-specific demands on Chinese discourse processing [J]. Neuroscience Letters 511: 59-64.
Jackendoff, R. 2002. Foundations of Language: Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution [M]. New York: Oxford University Press.
Jackendoff, R. 2007. A parallel architecture perspective on language processing [J]. Brain Research 1146: 2-22.
Jang, G., S. A. Yoon, S. E. Lee, H. Park, J. Kim, J. H. Ko & H. J. Park. 2013. Everyday conversation requires cognitive inference: Neural bases of comprehending implicated meanings in conversations[J]. Neuroimage 81: 61-72.
Jouravlev, O., L. Stearns, L. Bergen, M. Eddy, E. Gibson & E. Fedorenko. 2016. Processing temporal presuppositions: An event-related potential study[J]. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience 31: 1245-1256.
Kaiser, E. 2011. Focusing on pronouns: Consequences of subjecthood, pronominalisation, and contrastive focus [J]. Language and Cognitive Processes (10): 1625-1666.
Kuperberg, G., M. Paczynski & T. Ditman. 2011. Establishing causal coherence across sentences: An ERP study [J]. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (23): 1230-1246.
Levinson, S. C. 1983. Pragmatics [M]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Matsui, T. 2000. Bridging and Relevance [M]. John Benjamins.
Nieuwland, M. S., M. Otten & J. J. A. Van Berkum. 2007a. Who are you talking about? Tracking discourse-level referential processing with ERPs [J]. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (19): 228-236.
Nieuwland, M. S., K. M. Petersson & J. J. A. Van Berkum. 2007b. On sense and reference: Examining the functional neuroanatomy of referential processing [J]. Neuroimage 37: 993-1004.
Nieuwland, M. S., T. Ditman & G. R. Kuperberg. 2010. On the incrementality of pragmatic processing: An ERP investigation of informativeness and pragmatic abilities [J]. Journal of Memory and Language (63): 324-346.
Noveck, I. & A. Posada. 2003. Characterising the time course of an implicature [J]. Brain and Language 85: 203-210.
Qiu, L., T. Y. Swaab, H. C. Chen & S. Wang. 2012. The role of gender information in pronoun resolution: Evidence from Chinese [J]. Plos ONE 7(5):e36156.
Schwarz, F. 2007. Processing presupposed content [J]. Journal of Semantics: An International Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of the Semantics of Natural Language 24(4): 373-416.
Tiemann, S., M. Kirsten, S. Beck, I. Hertrich & B. Rolke. 2015. Presupposition processing and accommodation: An experiment on ‘wieder’ (again) and consequences for other triggers[A]. In F. Schwarz (ed.). Experimental Perspectives on Presuppositions[C]. Switzerland:Springer.39-65.
Van Berkum, J. J. A., C. M. Brown & P. Hagoort. 1999. Early referential context effects in sentence processing: Evidence from event-related brain potentials [J]. Journal of Memory and Language (41): 147-182.
Van Berkum, J. J. A., C. M. Brown, P. Hagoort & P. Zwitserlood. 2003. Event-related brain potentials reflect discourse-referential ambiguity in spoken language comprehension [J]. Psychophysiology 40: 235-248.
Van Berkum, J. J. A., A. W. Koornneef, M. Otten & M. S. Nieuwland. 2007. Establishing reference in language comprehension: An electrophysiological perspective [J]. Brain Research 1146: 158-171.
Wu, S. & Z. Ma. 2016. Suppression and working memory in auditory comprehension of L2 narratives: Evidence from cross-modal priming[J]. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 45: 1115-1135.
Xu, X. D., M. Z. Pan, H. Y. Dai, H. Zhang & Y. Y. Lu. 2018. How referential uncertainty is modulated by conjunctions: ERP evidence from advanced Chinese-English L2 learners and English L1 speakers[J]. Second Language Research, doi:10.1177/0267658318756948.
Xu, X. D., X. M. Jiang & X. L. Zhou. 2013. Processing biological gender and number information during Chinese pronoun resolution: ERP evidence for functional differentiation [J]. Brain and Cognition 81: 223-236.
Xu, X. D. & X. L. Zhou. 2016a. Topic shift impairs pronoun resolution during sentence comprehension: Evidence from event-related potentials [J]. Psychophysiology 53: 129-142.
Xu, X. D. & X. L. Zhou. 2016b. “Who” should be focused? The influence of focus status on pronoun resolution[J]. Psychophysiology 53: 1679-1689.
Xu, X. D. 2015. The influence of information status on pronoun resolution in Mandarin Chinese: Evidence from ERPs[J]. Frontiers in Psychology 6: 873.
Xu, X. D, X. M. Jiang & X. L. Zhou. 2015. When a causal assumption is not satisfied by reality: Differential brain responses to concessive and causal relations during sentence comprehension [J]. Language, Cognition & Neuroscience 30(6): 704-715.
Yang, C. Y., C. A. Perfetti & F. Schmalhofer. 2007. Event-related potential indicators of text integration across sentence boundaries [J]. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 33(1): 55-89.
Yu, J., Y. Zhang, J. E. Boland & L. Cai. 2015. The interplay between referential processing and local syntactic/semantic processing: ERPs to written Chinese discourse [J]. Brain Research, 1597 139-158.
何自然、冉永平. 2009. 新编语用学概论[M]. 北京:北京大学出版社.
蓝纯.2009.语言学概论[M]. 北京:外语教学与研究出版社.
冉永平、莫爱屏、王寅. 2006. 认知语用学[M]. 上海:上海外语教育出版社.
魏在江. 2014. 语用预设的认知语用研究[M]. 上海:上海外语教育出版社.
徐晓东. 2014. 汉语焦点信息影响代词回指的电生理机制[J]. 心理科学进展22(6): 902-910.
徐晓东、倪传斌、陈丽娟. 2013. 话题结构和动词语义对代词回指的影响——一项基于语言产生和语言理解任务的实证研究[J]. 现代外语36(4): 331-339.
徐晓东、陈丽娟、倪传斌. 2017. 汉语话题回指如何受动词语义关系约束——来自脑电研究的证据[J].外语教学与研究49(3):323-334.
