Lecture8DiscourseComprehension幻灯片.pptVIP

Criticism The argument overlap in STM is insufficient to account for textual coherence. Local coherence Global coherence The propositional representations of both micro- and macrostructure Underestimate the role of world knowledge, not only in making inferences or in maintaining coherence, but more generally in the construction of a mental model of the story, a level of representation that is independent of the linguistic structure of the text. Homework Reading: Language production Psycholinguistics Lecture 8 Discourse Comprehension Main Contents 1. Discourse and discourse coherence 2. Discourse and memory 3. Inferences 4. Schemata Topic 1 DISCOURSE AND DISCOURSE COHERENCE DISCOURSE Definition any group of sentences combined in a meaningful manner Stories, lectures, papers, instructions Discourse coherence how the sentences stick together Two mechanisms to establish coherence: LOCAL structure: relationships between individual sentences in a discourse. GLOBAL structure: the overall framework of a discourse e.g. the schema Local structure Local structure can be established by many different linguistic tricks to establish cohesion see Carroll, p. 158 . co reference Anaphoric reference: refers back to an antecedent. Within a sentence: strict constraints on anaphoric reference Mary laughed at John, and he was pretty upset.“ a Bill asked John to tell Fred about him. b Bill asked John to tell Fred about himself. Across sentences: not so strict c Bill saw his old friend John. He smiled. d Bill saw his old friend John. He had gained some weight. Cataphoric reference: refers to something ahead This is what well do. Ill rob the bank and you drive the getaway car.“ I didnt see him clearly at first, but when the monster finally walked into the bright light, I screamed. Old information and New Information A basic strategy of forming discourse coherence: try to link new with the old information Given old, assumed vs. new information is sometim