G3: Language Comprehendsion Flashcards
the ability to understand spoken or written language
Language Comprehension
Breaking down or analysis of the syntactical structure of sentences.
Parsing
• readers or listeners can be misled or “to be led down the garden path” by ambiguous sentences.
Garden-path Model (Fraizer & Rayner, 1982)
• This model has been developed by MacDonald (2013) into the production-distribution-comprehension account. This model assumes speakers use various strategies to reduce processing demands:
• Start with common words and syntactically simple phrases while the rest of the utterance is planned.
• Favour more practised and easy sentence plans.
Constraint-based Model (MacDonal et al, 1994)
This model combines aspects of the garden-path and constraint-based models. It assumes:
• All sources of information are used to identify a syntactic structure.
• All other possible syntactic structures are ignored unless the favoured syntactic structure is disconfirmed.
• If the initially chosen. syntactic structure has to be discarded then there is an extensive period of reanalysis.
Unrestricted Race Model (Van Sompel et al., 2001)
• The study or analysis of intended meaning considering the context in which it is used.
• The intended meaning of a sentence may not be the same as its literal meaning.
Pragmatics
- does not use a word’s strict or realistic meaning
Figurative Language
Speakers not only use language to say things, but also to do things.
• Used to commit to an action.
Speech-Act theory
- speaker’s utterance (Is there any salt?)
Locutionary Act
speaker’s intention (Please give me some salt.)
Illocutionary Act
- hearer’s reaction (Gives the salt)
Perlocutionary Act
• Centered on the idea of appealing to a person’s positive or negative face by being polite.
• “The positive public image we seek to establish in social interactions.” (Goffman, 1995)
Politeness Theory
- an individual’s desire to be liked and appreciated by others (self-esteem)
Example: “You always wear such lovely clothes! I’d love to borrow something one day.”
Positive Face
- an individual’s desire to protect their personal rights (freedom of speech and action)
Example: “I know it’s a real pain, and I hope you don’t mind, but could you please print these off for me?”
Negative Face
• Based on the idea of cooperation.
• When people talk, they naturally want to work together, which makes it easier to understand each other.
Cooperative Principle
- They will tell the truth or what they think is the truth.
Maxim of Quality
- They will give sufficient information.
Maxim of Quantity
- They will say things that are relevant to the conversation.
Maxim of Relevance
- They will be clear, pleasant and helpful.
Maxim of Manner
: What a person can imply, suggest, or mean.
• Refers to indirect speech acts.
• Examining or wanting to know what something means without them explicitly saying it.
• Example: A couple are watching TV, but they are both looking at their phones and not paying much attention to the TV. The boy says, “Are you watching this? “ The girl grabs the remote and changes the channel.
Conversational Implicature
- knowledge of the strategies and realizing speech intentions and linguistic items used.
Pragmalinguistics
- Indicates the social perception that underlie participants’ interpretation and performance of communicative
Sociopragmatics
- That part of pragmatics that studies the “mental” uses of signs.
Psychopragamtics
The enduring psychological characteristics that distinguishes one person from another, which makes it easier and helpful to define each person’s individuality or identity.
Individual Differencess
