Holdingreferring

Holdingreferring is a term used in discourse analysis to describe a strategy in which a referent is maintained across multiple utterances without repeated explicit naming. The speaker keeps the referent active in memory or signals it indirectly through pronouns, demonstratives, or ellipses, enabling continued reference while avoiding unnecessary repetition.

Unlike standard anaphora, which relies on straightforward pronoun substitution after an initial mention, holdingreferring emphasizes the deliberate management of a referent's salience over longer stretches of discourse. It can support cohesion by reducing redundancy and can contribute to a sense of continuity, suspense, or focus in narration or dialogue.

Examples include a narrative sequence that introduces a character or object once and then prolongs reference with pronouns and contextual cues: "The guest arrived late. It scanned the room before speaking." Here the referent is kept in focus through indirect references rather than repeated naming.

In practice, holdingreferring intersects with topics such as working memory, discourse coherence, and referential resolution. In computational linguistics and natural language processing, recognizing and modeling holdingreferring can inform pronoun resolution, discourse modeling, and the maintenance of referential continuity in long dialogues.

See also: Anaphora, Cohesion (linguistics), Reference resolution, Discourse analysis, Working memory.