Inferencing

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Inferencing

• The art of guessing the meaning of unknown words

Leif Frederiksen, November 2006
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Lets see what it is all about!
They fell in love with the dog. Golden, gleaming,
he took them over.
What do you think took them over means?
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They fell in love with the dog. Golden, gleaming,
he took them over. The cats
What did the poor cats do?
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They fell in love with the dog. Golden, gleaming,
he took them over. The cats cowered in the kitchen
What do you think cowered means?
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They fell in love with the dog. Golden, gleaming,
he took them over. The cats cowered in the
kitchen, the dog sprawled on the living-room
carpet, panting with life, large, irresistible.
What do you thing irresistible means?
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Other words you want to have a go with?
They fell in love with the dog. Golden, gleaming,
he took them over. The cats cowered in the
kitchen, the dog sprawled on the living-room
carpet, panting with life, large, irresistible.
By the time the girl arrived to reclaim him,
which she duly did, they had all reconciled
themselves to keeping him, had started to
reorganise their lives on a dog basis.
took them over Because the dog is golden and
gleaming they fall in love with him.
cowered The cats try to make themselves small
the kitchen. Everybody knows cats are afraid of
dogs. No! This word has nothing to do with being
a coward.
irresistible You cannot resist him, you must
give in to him. Cf. Danish resistent. Latin
prefix ir- not.
reclaim take him back. Latin prefix re- again,
back.
duly as she should, as agreed. Cf The train is
due in 10 minutes.
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Inferencing strategies - overview
Top-down strategies

• The readers knowledge of the world
• Schemas
• Semantic fields
• The readers knowledge of texts
• Building up expectations
• Making predictions
• The readers linguistic competence
• Syntax
• Morphology
• Help from other languages

Bottom-up strategies
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1. Knowledge of the world
Knowledge of the world may be thought of as
organised in schemas (or scripts). A schema
is a mental representation of a typical
instance A person has thousands of schemas
which overlap and can be activated in numerous
combinations. They give standard versons of what
to expect and how to react in your daily life.
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1.2. Schemas - examples
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1.2. Schema

• A basic schema such as Family dinner is known to
  most people, but its elements vary according to
  e.g.
• Size and mix of family
• Nationality
• Religion
• Time of day
• Nature of the food
• Number of dishes
• Moods of the participants
• Duties
• etc ..

A schema is expressed in a semantic field, i.e.
the specialized words and phrases characteristic
of a schema situation.
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1. 2. Semantic field. What schema?
I never knew what I would find when I opened the
doors to inspect my traps or looked behind the
furniture, stove or refrigerator. I was afraid I
would catch the mice and find them dead in the
traps and have to dispose of them. I was afraid
that I wouldn't catch the mice, and that I would
have to go through the same repulsive ritual of
setting and inspecting the traps night after
night and morning after morning for God knows how
long. What I dreaded most of all, though, was
that I would open a door in the kitchen and find
a live mouse crouching in a dark corner that
would hesitate only long enough for me to spy it
and then come bounding out past me beneath the
thick, rolled-up magazine I always gripped in my
sweating fist as a weapon. Oh, God, if that ever
happened. If that ever happened, I knew I would
have to make myself hit it as hard as I could.
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1.2. Semantic field. Catching mice
I never knew what I would find when I opened the
doors to inspect my traps or looked behind the
furniture, stove or refrigerator. I was afraid I
would catch the mice and find them dead in the
traps and have to dispose of them. I was afraid
that I wouldn't catch the mice, and that I would
have to go through the same repulsive ritual of
setting and inspecting the traps night after
night and morning after morning for God knows how
long. What I dreaded most of all, though, was
that I would open a door in the kitchen and find
a live mouse crouching in a dark corner that
would hesitate only long enough for me to spy it
and then come bounding out past me beneath the
thick, rolled-up magazine I always gripped in my
sweating fist as a weapon. Oh, God, if that ever
happened. If that ever happened, I knew I would
have to make myself hit it as hard as I could.
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1. Parking in New York
A New York driver returned to his parked car to
find it had been ?????? down one side. He then
noticed a letter tucked under the windscreen from
the driver who had damaged his car. It read, I
have just run into your car. People have seen me
and are watching me write this letter. They think
I am leaving my name and address. They are wrong.
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1. Parking in New York (2)
A New York driver returned to his parked car to
find it had been ?????? down one side. He then
noticed a letter tucked under the windscreen from
the driver who had damaged his car. It read, I
have just run into your car. People have seen me
and are watching me write this letter. They think
I am leaving my name and address. They are wrong.
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1. Parking in New York (3)
A New York driver returned to his parked car to
find it had been dented down one side. He then
noticed a letter tucked under the windscreen from
the driver who had damaged his car. It read, I
have just run into your car. People have seen me
and are watching me write this letter. They think
I am leaving my name and address. They are wrong.
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1. Parking in New York (4)
A New York driver returned to his parked car to
find it had been dented down one side. He then
noticed a letter tucked under the windscreen from
the driver who had damaged his car. It read, I
have just run into your car. People have seen me
and are watching me write this letter. They think
I am leaving my name and address. They are wrong.
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1. Parking in New York (5)
A New York driver returned to his parked car to
find it had been dented down one side. He then
noticed a letter tucked under the windscreen from
the driver who had damaged his car. It read, I
have just run into your car. People have seen me
and are watching me write this letter. They think
I am leaving my name and address. They are wrong.
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2. Knowledge of texts

• Text genres
• Narrative structures
• Etc.

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2.1. Building up expectations
Here a pretty baby lies
Sung asleep with lullabies 
Pray be silent and not stir
Th' easy earth that covers her. 
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2.2. Making predictions
John took the _______ out of his pocket again.
He had never imagined that a _______ could be so
big.
He studied the two colours of the ______ for some
time.
The black part was what had been bad.
Had that big _______ really been part of him?
Getting it out had not hurt that much after all.
Suddenly it struck him what he would say to his
mother Only one hole, but it is big.
tooth
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3.1. Syntax. Discourse
Often you can be helped by words that indicate
text structure such as
1. Divisons firstly, secondly, similarly 2.
Contrasts on the other hand, but 3. Logical
consequence so, consequently 4. Time sequence
then 4. Reference this
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3. 1. Syntax. Discourse (2)
Slavery had been abandoned by most Western
societies by the middle of the 19th century, but
it ________ in the American south.
The word but signals a contrast, so what is the
likely meaning of the original word represented
by ________ ?
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3.1. Syntax. Discourse (3)
Slavery had been abandoned by most Western
societies by the middle of the 19th century, but
it flourished in the American south.
To flourish means to be active and successful.
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3.1. Syntax. Word class
You probably know the words brave
ridiculous voice
What do they mean?
What does to voice mean?
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3.1. Syntax. Word class (2)
So what does the following sentence mean?
She did not approve of large dogs in London, had
braved ridicule by voicing her views in print on
dog licences and dog shit.
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3.2. Morphology
Examples

• Prefix abnormal, non-toxic
• Root
• biology (bio life)
• diminish (mini small)
• Suffix biology (logy the study of a particular
  field of knowledge)

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Inferencing model
The readers knowledge of the world
Context
? unknown word ?
Text
Building up expectations
Predictions
Form of the word
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On the website of the book you will find Guess
with game-like exercises of the type John took
the _______ out of his pocket again.