The study focuses on current approaches to the issue of reference in the text within cognitive and pragmatic research paradigms in linguistics. The concept of reference is examined and various tendencies of its interpretations are considered by different scholars. Reference is a multifaceted phenomenon related to cognition and the philosophy of language. It is examined in terms of proposition. The analysis of reference is projected on English scientific and technical text corpus on civil engineering and exemplified with linguistic means, in particular key words - nouns in the function of the subject of the sentence. It is argued that pragmatic inferences and deductions depend upon the context and play an important role in the interpretation of linguistic expressions. The study outcomes can be used in delivering a course of lectures on text linguistics and pragmatics at higher education institutions.