Study 4 Meaning and Discourse Comprehension with 12 free online flashcards. Review key terms, definitions, and concepts with this interactive flashcard deck.
What does language comprehension combine to build an interpretation?
Language comprehension combines linguistic information with grammar, context, memory, and world knowledge to build an interpretation. It proceeds incrementally, and later information can revise earlier interpretations.
What is word recognition?
Word recognition connects a written or spoken form with lexical knowledge, including its possible meanings, grammatical properties, and relations to other words.
How does syntax contribute to sentence meaning?
Syntax shows how words relate in a sentence, helping identify who acted and who was affected. Changing word order can change the event described.
What does “While Anna dressed the baby played” illustrate?
A reader may initially group “the baby” with “dressed,” then revise that interpretation when “played” appears. This illustrates incremental parsing and repair.
What is pragmatics?
Pragmatics is the interpretation of language in context. For example, “It’s cold in here” beside an open window may indirectly request that someone close it.
What is common ground in conversation?
Common ground is information that conversation participants treat as shared. It can help a listener identify what expressions such as “it” refer to.
Does common ground ensure listeners use only shared information?
Common ground does not guarantee that listeners use only what the speaker knows; information available only to the listener can sometimes interfere with interpretation.
What is cohesion in discourse?
Cohesion consists of explicit linguistic links between parts of a discourse, such as pronouns, repeated words, and connectives.
What is coherence in discourse?
Coherence is the meaningful relationship readers or listeners construct among ideas, even when that relationship is not stated explicitly.
What is a bridging inference?
A bridging inference supplies unstated information that connects ideas and helps make discourse coherent. In “Maya dropped the glass. It shattered,” the reader infers a causal link.
What does a textbase represent?
A textbase represents the meanings and relations expressed in the text.
What does a situation model represent?
A situation model represents the events, people, objects, time, and place described—the situation the reader or listener understands the text to be about.
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