Connectives and Causal Relatedness in Expository Text

Connectives and Causal Relatedness in Expository Text PDF Author: Benjamin G. Simpkins
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Discourse markers
Languages : en
Pages : 57

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Book Description
Author's abstract: The combined influence of causal connectives and varying levels of causal relatedness on online and offline comprehension of expository texts was investigated. The current hypothesis was that causal connectives would encourage elaborative processing and online generation of bridging inferences, particularly in the moderately to low causally related sentence pairs. This was predicted because past research has noted causal connectives capacity to elicit generation of inferences online. Connectives were not predicted to encourage inference generation in the higher-related items because the causal bridging inference should be obvious to the reader. To test this, a new set of 24 expository items was generated with four versions of each item representing varying levels of causal relatedness. Results show little evidence supporting the hypotheses. To account for the null findings, the potential difficulty and participants lack of familiarity with the text content are discussed as factors. Suggestions for future research are presented. INDEX WORDS: Discourse Processing, Connectives, Conjunctions, Causality, Causal Relatedness, Bridging Inferences, Elaborative Inferences, Local Coherence, Expository Text.

Connectives and Causal Relatedness in Expository Text

Connectives and Causal Relatedness in Expository Text PDF Author: Benjamin G. Simpkins
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Discourse markers
Languages : en
Pages : 57

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Book Description
Author's abstract: The combined influence of causal connectives and varying levels of causal relatedness on online and offline comprehension of expository texts was investigated. The current hypothesis was that causal connectives would encourage elaborative processing and online generation of bridging inferences, particularly in the moderately to low causally related sentence pairs. This was predicted because past research has noted causal connectives capacity to elicit generation of inferences online. Connectives were not predicted to encourage inference generation in the higher-related items because the causal bridging inference should be obvious to the reader. To test this, a new set of 24 expository items was generated with four versions of each item representing varying levels of causal relatedness. Results show little evidence supporting the hypotheses. To account for the null findings, the potential difficulty and participants lack of familiarity with the text content are discussed as factors. Suggestions for future research are presented. INDEX WORDS: Discourse Processing, Connectives, Conjunctions, Causality, Causal Relatedness, Bridging Inferences, Elaborative Inferences, Local Coherence, Expository Text.

Causality and Connectives

Causality and Connectives PDF Author: Valandis Bardzokas
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027275017
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
The book explores finely-grained distinctions in causal meaning, mostly from a relevance-theoretic perspective. To increase the challenge of this double task, i.e. a thorough as well as satisfactory account of cause and a detailed assessment of the theoretical model employed to this end, the current study involves an investigation carried out by way of contrasting the prototypical causal exponents of Modern Greek subordination, i.e. epeiδi and γiati. In addition, this objective is achieved in the methodological framework of contrasting a range of contextual applications of the two connectives against their translated versions in English, realizable by means of because. Despite first impressions, a closer observation of the wide range of applications of these markers in the discourse of coherence relations illustrates divergences in their distribution, which, in turn, are taken to highlight differing aspects of causal interpretation. The proposal for the relevance-theoretic model emanates from a reaction to an array of problems undermining traditional tenets of pragmatic theory originating with Grice’s stance, but is also made in response to the common practice in pragmatic research (since its origin) to pay low regard for the contribution of typical causal markers to debates aiming at the determination of the distinction that has been instrumental to issues of cognition and pragmatic interpretation, i.e. propositional vs. non-propositional meaning.

Causal Categories in Discourse and Cognition

Causal Categories in Discourse and Cognition PDF Author: Ted Sanders
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110224410
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
Review text: "With all these contributions, this collection definitely constitutes a high quality volume in this research area and is a valuable reference to anyone who is interested in discourse and cognition."Han-wei in: Discourse Studies 3/2011

Causal Connectives Have Presuppositions

Causal Connectives Have Presuppositions PDF Author: Luuk Lagerwerf
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Causation
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description


Causation and Reasoning Constructions

Causation and Reasoning Constructions PDF Author: Masaru Kanetani
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027262713
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
Causation and reasoning are different but related types of relationships. Both causal relations and reasoning processes may be expressed with one and the same connective word in some languages: English speakers use because and Japanese speakers use kara. How then are causation and reasoning processes related to and different from each other? How do we construe and encode them? How is because different from other conjunctions with similar meanings? To account for these and related empirical questions, this book presents an integrated analysis in accordance with the original principles of Construction Grammar. In particular, the book shows that the analysis proposed is compatible with our general knowledge about causation and reasoning and that it is valid for English and Japanese. The proposed analysis is also comprehensively applicable to a variety of related phenomena, ranging from the just because X doesn’t mean Y construction to the innovative and less known because X construction.

Cognitive Pragmatics

Cognitive Pragmatics PDF Author: Hans-Jörg Schmid
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110214210
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 664

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Book Description
Speakers tend to compose their utterances in such a way that the message they want to get across is hardly ever fully encoded by the meanings of the words and the grammar they use. Instead speakers rely on hearers adding conceptual and emotive content while interpreting the contextually appropriate meanings and intentions behind utterances. This insight, which is of course particularly relevant in all kinds of indirect, figurative or humorous talk, lies at the heart of the linguistic discipline of pragmatics. If pragmatics is the study of meaning-in-context, then cognitive pragmatics can be broadly defined as encompassing the study of the cognitive principles and processes involved in the construal of meaning-in-context. While it would seem only natural that pragmatics as such should have addressed such cognitive issues anyway, it has mainly been due to the historical rooting of this discipline in the philosophy of language that psychological aspects have not been in the pragmatic limelight to date. Being part of the 9-volume-series Handbooks of Pragmatics, this volume is the first to systematically survey this terrain from a wide range of perspectives. It collects state-of-the-art contributions by leading experts from the fields of pragmatics, psycholinguistics, cognitive linguistics, clinical linguistics and historical linguistics. The volume is divided into four parts which tackle the following questions: Part I: The cognitive principles of pragmatic competence What are the general cognitive principles underlying pragmatic competence, i.e. the skill to arrive at context-dependent meanings of utterances? What are the cognitive underpinnings of language users' ability to compute or infer intended meanings in the role of hearers and to give hints as to how to decode intended meanings in the role of speakers? Part II: The psychology of pragmatics What are the actual cognitive processes taking place during online construal of meaning-in-context on the basis of encoded messages? How is pragmatic competence acquired in childhood? What are the types, sources and effects of pragmatic disorders, i.e. impairments of pragmatic competence? Part III: The construal of non-explicit and non-literal meaning-in-context What are the cognitive principles and processes involved in the construal of meanings of non-explicit and indirect utterances? How do we process figurative meanings, humour and gestures? Part IV: The emergence of linguistic structures from meaning-in-context What are the repercussions of the (repeated) construal of context-dependent meanings on linguistic structures and the linguistic system? How does the system change under the influence of the construal of meanings in social situations? Reduced series price (print) available! [email protected].

Form and Function of Causation

Form and Function of Causation PDF Author: Liesbeth Degand
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
The aim of this study is to provide a unified functional description of a number of causal constructions in Dutch: the connectives omdat, want, doordat, the prepositions door, vanwege, wegens, and the auxiliaries doen and laten. Given the observation that the various causal alternatives are not in free variation in discourse, the author hypothesises that this distribution must be constrained and that it should be possible to identify some of the constraints that play a role in the selection of these causal forms. To reach this goal, Degand proposes to make use of a multifunctional theory of language - Systemic Functional Linguistics - in combination with numerous corpus analyses. This approach to language appeared to be particularly relevant, because it enables to give an explicit account of aspects of language that fall out of the traditional scope of linguistic description, namely accounts of genre, register, discourse semantics, etc. while the corpus analyses provide a solid empirical basis for the theoretical descriptions.

The Oxford Handbook of Causal Reasoning

The Oxford Handbook of Causal Reasoning PDF Author: Michael Waldmann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199399573
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 769

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Book Description
Causal reasoning is one of our most central cognitive competencies, enabling us to adapt to our world. Causal knowledge allows us to predict future events, or diagnose the causes of observed facts. We plan actions and solve problems using knowledge about cause-effect relations. Although causal reasoning is a component of most of our cognitive functions, it has been neglected in cognitive psychology for many decades. The Oxford Handbook of Causal Reasoning offers a state-of-the-art review of the growing field, and its contribution to the world of cognitive science. The Handbook begins with an introduction of competing theories of causal learning and reasoning. In the next section, it presents research about basic cognitive functions involved in causal cognition, such as perception, categorization, argumentation, decision-making, and induction. The following section examines research on domains that embody causal relations, including intuitive physics, legal and moral reasoning, psychopathology, language, social cognition, and the roles of space and time. The final section presents research from neighboring fields that study developmental, phylogenetic, and cultural differences in causal cognition. The chapters, each written by renowned researchers in their field, fill in the gaps of many cognitive psychology textbooks, emphasizing the crucial role of causal structures in our everyday lives. This Handbook is an essential read for students and researchers of the cognitive sciences, including cognitive, developmental, social, comparative, and cross-cultural psychology; philosophy; methodology; statistics; artificial intelligence; and machine learning.

Causal Connectives, Cohesion, and Text Complexity in The Wretched Stone by Chris Van Allsburg

Causal Connectives, Cohesion, and Text Complexity in The Wretched Stone by Chris Van Allsburg PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 86

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Book Description
"Fourth Grade students are at a pivotal point in their reading development; English learners especially face challenges in shifting from learning how to read to reading to learn. Moreover, the Common Core State Standards call for more complex texts in the reading curriculum. Text complexity goes beyond surface-level features of text yet many traditional readability measures do not. In this text analysis, a computer-based tool called Coh-Metrix is used, together with a qualitative analysis, to determine how causal connectives and logical operators are used to drive the plot and theme of The Wretched Stone by Chris Van Allsburg. Findings show the text was easy according to traditional readability formulas but complex as measured by Coh-Metrix. Author choices such as genre also played a role in the linguistic complexity of the text. It is recommended that teachers consider cohesion when determining text complexity; Coh-Metrix is one way to accomplish this task." --

Sentence Comprehension

Sentence Comprehension PDF Author: David J. Townsend
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262700801
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 520

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Book Description
Using sentence comprehension as a case study for all of cognitive science, David Townsend and Thomas Bever offer an integration of two major approaches, the symbolic-computational and the associative-connectionist. The symbolic-computational approach emphasizes the formal manipulation of symbols that underlies creative aspects of language behavior. The associative-connectionist approach captures the intuition that most behaviors consist of accumulated habits. The authors argue that the sentence is the natural level at which associative and symbolic information merge during comprehension. The authors develop and support an analysis-by-synthesis model that integrates associative and symbolic information in sentence comprehension. This integration resolves problems each approach faces when considered independently. The authors review classic and contemporary symbolic and associative theories of sentence comprehension, and show how recent developments in syntactic theory fit well with the integrated analysis-by-synthesis model. They offer analytic, experimental, and neurological evidence for their model and discuss its implications for broader issues in cognitive science, including the logical necessity of an integration of symbolic and connectionist approaches in the field.