[英语学习]语言心理学.ppt

Chapter 7 Discourse Comprehension and Memory Supervisor: Zhang Zhimin Reporter: Lang Qian Contents Introduction This chapter deals with the ways we comprehend and remember units of language longer than the sentence—that is, connected discourse. Research on discourse has grown significantly in recent decades, for several reasons. ● We rarely speak in isolated sentence, discourse seems to be a more natural unit of language to investigate. ● Sentences are ambiguous or obscure apart from their discourse context. ● Discourse provides a rich source of material for those interested in the cognitive processes used in language. Comprehension of discourse Local and global discourse structure Comprehension of connected discourse depends less on the meaning of the individual sentences than on their arrange-ment. Indeed, it is entirely possible for a group of mean-ingful sentences to be thrown together in a way that makes no sense at all. e.g. Carlos arranged to take golf lessons from the local pro-fessional. His dog, a cocker spaniel, was expecting pups again. Andrea had the car washed for the big wedding. She expected Carlos to help her move into her new apartment. Local and global discourse structure John bought a cake at the bake shop. The cake was chocolate with white frosting and it was read “Happy birthday, Joan” in red letters. John was particularly pleased with the lettering. He brought it over to Greg’s house, and together they worked on the rest of details. John bought a cake at the bake shop. The birthday card was signed by all of the employees. The party went on until after midnight. Local and global discourse structure The contrast between the last two passages illustrates an important point that we must look beneath the surface to understand discourse structure. Superficia