Language and Communication

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Language and Communication

• Comprehension of Discourse and Text 2

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IF MENTAL REPRESENTATIONS OF TEXT AREN'T
LINGUISTIC REPRESENTATIONS, WHAT ARE THEY?

• Representations of events (actions, states,
  processes), and their participants (people,
  animals, objects) and the relations between them
  (spatial, temporal, logical, causal, intentional,
  moral)
• called mental models, situation models,
  discourse models

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GLENBERG, MEYER, LINDEM (1987) Example Materials

• John was preparing for a marathon in August.
• After doing a few warm-up exercises, he
• put on (ASSOCIATED VERSION)
• OR took off (DISSOCIATED VERSION)
• his sweatshirt and went jogging)(1st)
• He jogged halfway around the lake without too
  much difficulty.(2nd)
• Further along his route, however, John's muscles
  began to ache.(3rd)
• PROBE Sweatshirt - at one of the "" points
• ASSOCIATED lt DISSOCIATED at 2nd and 3rd test
  points

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SOME OTHER IDEAS ABOUT TEXT COMPREHENSION

• Story Grammars (e.g. Rumelhart, 1975) - stories
  have a grammatical structure similar to that of
  sentences.
• What about other types of text?
• Story grammars are sometimes referred to as story
  schemas, but the idea of a schema is a much more
  general one (see next slide).
• Construction-Integration (Kintsch, 1988) - Of the
  possible meanings that parts of a text might
  have, those that are related support each other,
  while those that are not are eliminated (e.g.
  "wrong" meanings of ambiguous words)

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SCHEMAS AND SCRIPTS

• Bartlett (1932) Schemas are organised packets of
  knowledge which enable us to make sense of the
  world (and descriptions of it).
• 4 central processes in schema formation
• appropriate aspects of incoming stimuli selected
  
• ? meaning is abstracted
• ? activation of appropriate prior knowledge
• ? info integrated into a single holistic
  representation.

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SCHEMAS AND SCRIPTS - continued

• Schank Abelson, 1977, Scripts are a type of
  schema that represent our knowledge of routine
  actions and familiar repeated sequences. E.g.
• Visit to restaurant
• Visit to doctor
• Attend lecture
• So, schemas and scripts provide a way of
  organising knowledge

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SCHEMAS AND SCRIPTS - continued

• A text may describe an example of a routine
  action (e.g. a particular visit to a restaurant)
• The script can be used to understand the text
• Its use explains why we remember the gist of text
  and what inferences we make, but it does not
  explain how we make inferences.
• The use of script/schemas also explains
  Bartletts original findings that stories from
  different cultures (e.g. The War of the Ghosts)
  are distorted in memory to fit local cultural
  norms

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SCHEMAS AND SCRIPTS - Bower, et al.s (1979) Study

• Asked people to write down component actions of
  scripts such as visit restaurant, attend
  lecture
• People agreed about the component events and
  about which were most central
• Bower et al also showed that when events happen
  that are not in a script, they can be either
• More salient and more likely to be remembered if
  they are important story events that interrupt
  the usual routine of the script
• Less salient and less likely to be remembered if
  they are largely irrelevant asides

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CONVERSATION

• Spoken interchange where the topic may change as
  the conversation unfolds. Speakers and listeners
  co-operate to make conversation meaningful and
  purposeful (Grice).

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GRICES FOUR MAXIMS (1975)

• Maxim of quality speakers contribution to a
  conversation should be truthful (falsehood should
  be avoided and claims should be made on the basis
  of sufficient evidence).
• Maxim of quantity contribution should be as
  informative as is required for the conversation -
  neither too much nor too little.
• Maxim of relevance contribution should clearly
  relate to the purpose of the exchange.
• Maxim of manner contribution should be clear,
  I.e. avoid obscurity, ambiguity, wordiness, and
  disordered language.

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SPEECH ACTS

• Austin, Searle, 1960s and 1970s - every time we
  speak we perform a speech act.
• Performatives many utterances are equivalent to
  specific actions
• I hereby pronounce you man and wife
• I apologise
• Even stating a fact is a kind of action

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DIRECT AND INDIRECT SPEECH ACTS

• Direct speech acts straightforward utterances in
  which the intention of the speaker is revealed by
  the literal meaning of the words.
• E.g. Shut the door.
• Indirect speech acts the literal meaning of an
  utterance is not the intended one.
• E.g. Its getting cold in here.
• Could you shut the door?
• Brrr!
• (All said with the intention of getting someone
  to shut the door)

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HOW ARE NONLITERAL UTTERANCES UNDERSTOOD?

• Indirect Speech Acts are just one kind of
  indirect utterance
• Others include metaphor and irony
• Searle, 1979, 2-stage process for interpretation
• FIRST derive literal meaning
• SECOND if literal meaning doesnt make sense in
  context, derive a nonliteral meaning.
• There is conflicting evidence in relation to this
  claim, but non-literal meaning is often
  understood as quickly or more quickly than
  literal meaning, which Searles theory cannot
  accommodate.

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SEX DIFFERENCES IN TOPICS OF CONVERSATION (R.
Lakoff and others)

• Studied in the discipline of Sociolinguistics
• Men with men competition, teasing, sports,
  aggression, and doing things.
• Women with women the self, feelings, affiliation
  with others, home, and family.

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OTHER SEX DIFFERENCES IN CONVERSATION

• Women are more polite and employ fewer
  profanities and obscenities than men
• Women use more tag questions (,isnt it?,
  ,does it? etc.)
• Women use more words for colours
• Intonation patterns of men and women vary, with
  women using certain patterns associated with
  surprise and politeness more than men (Brend,
  1975).

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MIXED-SEX CONVERSATIONS

• Zimmerman West (1975)
• Conversations recorded in natural settings (e.g.
  coffee shops)
• Men speak more than women in mixed sex
  conversations.
• Men tend to initiate conversation.
• Men tend to explain things to women.
• Women tend to apologise.
• Men frequently interrupt women but rarely the
  other way round

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MIXED-SEX CONVERSATIONS

• More recent work has questioned some of these
  observations.
• There may have been cultural changes since the
  1970s (also in womens language in general - e.g.
  use of profanities)
• There are great variations in mixed-sex
  conversations that depend on factors such as
  context (e.g. business vs. home) and the
  relationship between the people talking

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EFFECTS OF SEX DIFFERENCES

• May cause misunderstandings and make
  conversations unsuccessful.
• Tannen (1990) when women mention a problem they
  may be wanting to share experiences. Men may
  interpret them as asking for a suggested
  solution.

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CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

• Languages other than English may have much
  clearer demarcations between different forms of
  language.
• E.g. Dyirbal (Australian Language)
• Guwal everyday variety used by everyone
• Dyalhuy mother-in-law variety (used by man to
  his mother-in-law, a taboo relative) which has
  a different vocabulary.
• Women are not allowed to speak a particular
  dialect, seen among Mayans, Zulus, and Mongols.

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JAPANESE VOCABULARY

• Men's form Women's form
• hara onaka stomach
• tsukemono okookoo pickles
• mizu ohiya water"
• bentoo obentoo box lunch
• kane okane money
• hashi ohashi chopsticks
• umai oishii delicious
• kuu taberu eat
• kutabaru / shinu nakunaru die

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JAPANESE VOCABULARY

• In some cases the "male" form is more blunt,
• it's perfectly acceptable for a man to use the
  "female" form.
• It is not an accident that traditionally "female"
  nouns have the polite or honorific prefix /o-/
• It may be more accurate to characterise the
  entire distinction as one of politeness, with the
  added social fact that women are expected to use
  more polite forms.
• Many younger Japanese women would no longer
  choose to use the specific female forms.

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CULTURAL DIFFERENCES - continued

• In some cultures, women are expected to remain
  silent in situations where men may talk (e.g.
  Araucanian Indians of Chile).
• However, in Malagasy, it is the women who openly
  and directly express anger towards others, they
  can be direct and straightforward, the men are
  indirect
• But it is indirectness of speech which is a
  prized quality in this society.

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COMPREHENSION CONCLUSIONS

• Comprehension is an integrative, constructive
  process that draws on background knowledge and
  results in the construction of mental models
• Inference is an important part of the
  constructive aspect of comprehension
• Necessary inferences are usually made,
  elaborative inferences may not be
• Interpreting anaphoric expressions and
  conjunctions is an important part of the
  integrative aspect of comprehension

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COMPREHENSION CONCLUSIONS - continued

• Background knowledge can be stored in schemas and
  scripts and used in comprehension
• Conversations have goals and people taking part
  in them should adhere to rules (or maxims) that
  will help them achieve their goals
• When we talk we are often performing speech
  acts (both direct and indirect)
• There are important sex and cultural differences
  in contributions to conversation and they can
  affect our understanding of what people say to us