Language and reading 2

Question 1

How do we process a sentence

Answer 1

-Processing individual words
-Assigning syntactic structure
-Syntactic combination rules used to group words together meaningfully, so literal meaning can be determined
-Interpretation of word in context, as the meaning derived from word may not be what it is meaning to convey

Question 2

What is syntax?

Answer 2

-When words in a sentence aren’t just strung together one after another, instead they are structured in phrases
-Noun phrase = “the man”
-Verb phrase = “saw the man”
-One phase can occur within another
-Sentences are broken down into nodes
-Each incoming word is assigned either ‘verb’ or ‘noun’
-Noun phrase + verb = verb phrase
-Noun phrase + verb phrase = sentence

Question 3

Describe syntactic ambiguity

Answer 3

-There are many ways that words can be grouped
-Processing of ambiguous sentences can be important in syntactic processing
-Allows researcher to examine factors that make readers choose one analysis over another
-Includes parsing, global ambiguity and temporary ambiguity

Question 4

What is parsing

Answer 4

-Analysis of syntactic or grammatical structure of a sentence

Question 5

What is global ambiguity

Answer 5

-Remain ambiguous between two or more interpretations even when reaching the end of the sentence
-e.g. ‘the spy observed the politician with binoculars’
-Absence of context as you don’t know who is holding them

Question 6

What is temporary ambiguity

Answer 6

-Begin ambiguous but can be fixed by the time you reach the end of the sentence
-e.g. ‘while Anna dressed the baby threw up’
-Ambiguous as to whether Anna dressed herself or the baby until ‘threw up’ occurred which is a disambiguiting verb

Question 7

What are the 2 theories of parsing?

Answer 7

-Serial model (Garden path theory - Lyn Frazier, 1970s, 1980s)
-Parallel model (Constraint satisfaction - MacDonald et al. 1994)

Question 8

Describe the Garden path theory

Answer 8

-Only one syntactic structure initially considered
-The meaning of the sentence is irrelevant
-Simplest structure is chosen, minimal attachment and late closure
-Minimal attachment states we need to initially build the tree that has the simplest structure and fewer nodes
-Late closure means that reader needs to associate incoming material with most recent material
-If simplest structure is incorrect then sentence meaning can cause re-analysis

Question 9

Describe the constraint satisfaction

Answer 9

-All relevant info is immediately available
-Initial interpretation of sentence depends on context, plausibility, bias and general word knowledge
-Different sources of info are known as constraints
-Completing sentence structures are activated simultaneously and syntactic structure that has the most support is chosen

Question 10

What are the different non-literal language (also known as figurative language)

Answer 10

-Metaphors -expression of object/person in a literal way by describing characteristics
-Idioms - group of words in a fixed order with particular meaning, differs from meaning alone e.g. spill the beans
-Irony - means of expression suggesting humorous/angry meaning for words used

Question 11

What is the standard pragmatic view?

Answer 11

-Serial model
-States function of irony is to communicate the opposite of what is said
-Says that literal meaning is assessed first and then you reanalyse and think opposite

Question 12

What is graded salience hypothesis?

Answer 12

-Familiar ironies such as ‘that’s just great’ has own entry into mental lexicon as its familiar and so is understood quicker and easier
-For unfamiliar ones, the literal meaning is assessed first and is then reanalysed when context is clear

Question 13

What is direct access view?

Answer 13

-Parallel model
-States that literal and ironic language are treated the same
-Whichever meaning supports the context will be chosen

Question 14

Describe the research by Hagoort et al. (2004) into Context and World Knowledge

Answer 14

-Event related brain potentials which measures electrical activity generated by the brain when performing a task
-When we see a word that doesn’t fit with sentence, creates N400 (large spike in electrical activity)

Question 15

What did Hagoort et al. (2004) study find?

Answer 15

-Ppts read sentence ‘Dutch trains are yellow’ which made sense to them
-N400 elicited by ‘ywllow’ is small as it’s familiar to them
-When they read ‘Dutch trains are white’ this leads to large amounts of N400 as they have to understand the sentence
-Results show that there is large amounts of processing within 400ms of encountering a word

Question 16

Describe shallow processing - Moses illusion

Answer 16

-‘How many animals of each kind fit Moses take on the ark?’
-Studies have shown that people give typically correct answer of 2, but instead it was Noah rather than Moses
-Shows lack of deep processing of the sentence