Processing Reference

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Abstract
A system of referential description is presented that attempts to represent crucial aspects of the process of performing and understanding referential acts. It is suggested that traditional logical accounts distract our attention from important properties concerning the use of referential expressions. The model proposed is consonant with a growing body of opinion amongst cognitive scientists that generating and interpreting natural language is best explained as a process of constructing cognitive models and procedures that represent and process the content of our utterances. If this position is taken seriously, there is a requirement that the state of language processors is the most important determinant of the mechanics of the referential act. This leads to a process model of reference. The paper also touches on why language is in a sense ‘radically opaque’ and why this opacity does not consistently lead to failure in communicative acts. The theory predicts that using language is a ‘risky’ business and that misinterpretation will occur more often than other formal theories predict.

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