The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics Part 96. In the past decade, Cognitive Linguistics has developed into one of the most dynamic and attractive frameworks within theoretical and descriptive linguistics The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics is a major new reference that presents a comprehensive overview of the main theoretical concepts and descriptive/theoretical models of Cognitive Linguistics, and covers its various subfields, theoretical as well as applied. | 920 TED SANDERS AND WILBERT SPOOREN 2. Referential Coherence Text 4 illustrates how referential coherence structures discourse. 4 The heaviest human in medical history was Jon Brower Minnoch b. 29 Sep 1941 of Bainbridge Island WA who had suffered from obesity since childhood. The 6-ft-i-in-tall former taxi driver was 392 lb in 1963 700 lb in 1966 and 975 lb in September 1976. In March 1978 Minnoch was rushed to University Hospital Seattle 0 saturated with fluid and 0 suffering from heart and respiratory failure. It took a dozen firemen and an improvised stretcher to move him from his home to a ferryboat. When he arrived at the hospital he was put in two beds lashed together. It took 13 people just to roll him over. The Guinness book of records 1994 151 The discourse topic Jon Brower Minnoch is identified in the first sentence and is referred to throughout this fragment in each sentence. Here are the referential forms used in the text Jon Brower Minnoch b. 29 Sep 1941 of Bainbridge Island WA The 6-ft-1-in-tall former taxi driver Minnoch 0 0 him he he him First of all this list shows that the linguistic indicators for referential coherence can be lexical NPs pronouns and other devices for anaphoric reference. Second it appears that the longest referential forms are used in the beginning of the fragment and once the referent has been identified the pronominal forms suffice. This is not a coincidence. Many linguists have noted this regularity and have related it to the cognitive status of the referents. Ariel 1990 2001 for instance has argued that this type of pattern in grammatical coding should be understood to guide processing. She has developed an Accessibility Theory in which high accessibility markers consist of less linguistic material and signal the default choice of continued activation. By contrast low accessibility markers consist of much linguistic material and signal termination of activation of the current topical referent and the re introduction of a .
