Language and Linguistics Compass最新文献

A large proportion of thoughts are internally generated. Of these, mind wandering—when attention shifts away from the current activity to an internal stream of thought—is frequent during reading and is negatively related to comprehension outcomes. Our goal is to review research on mind wandering during reading with an interdisciplinary and integrative lens that spans the cognitive, behavioural, computing and intervention sciences. We begin with theoretical developments on mind wandering, both in general and in the context of reading. Next, we discuss psychological research on how the text, context and reader interact to influence mind wandering and on associations between mind wandering and reading outcomes. We integrate the findings in a (working) theoretical account of mind wandering during reading. We then turn to computational models of mind wandering, including a short tutorial with examples on how to use machine learning to construct these models. Finally, we discuss emerging intervention research aimed at proactively reducing the occurrence of mind wandering or mitigating its effects. We conclude with open questions and directions for future research.

There has been considerable investigation of the roles that linguistic and world knowledge play during language comprehension. This investigation is important because its results have ramifications for both basic questions about how the mature intact language comprehension system functions and for applied questions regarding how comprehension systems that are impaired by aphasia might function. In the current paper, we review debates and research related to the representation and use of linguistic and world knowledge in language comprehension and then describe a recent computational model that takes both world and linguistic knowledge into account in predicting language comprehension difficulty. We then review empirical work that attempts to characterize the interactions and potential trade-offs between world and linguistic knowledge during language comprehension, and relate this work to the computational model previously described. We conclude with a brief overview of a few open questions regarding the representation of linguistic and world knowledge.

This article provides an overview of what is known as the noun phrase (NP) versus determiner phrase (DP) debate. I first revisit the arguments by which a language would be assigned an NP or rather a DP structure, followed by the proper characterisation, function and features of determiners. I then summarise the typological endeavour of Bošković, surveying some of the syntactic and semantic correlates of the NP versus DP parameter and applying four of the diagnostics Bošković developed to Turkish as well as providing examples from other languages such as Korean, Vietnamese and Lithuanian. For each diagnostic, I provide some counterarguments that cast doubt on the validity of those diagnostics. I conclude, in line with Kornfilt (2017, 2018) that proposing correlations between an NP or a DP status of the nominal domain and a certain clustering of syntactic or semantic properties should be abandoned.

Text comprehension theories propose that readers try to achieve a coherent representation of the situation depicted in a text. When reading multiple texts on the same topic, however, achieving a coherent representation of a situation poses additional challenges. Different sources may offer inconsistent descriptions or interpretations of the situation, or even contradict one another. Thus, additional assumptions are needed to explain how readers build a coherent representation of a situation when reading multiple individual texts on the same subject. This paper reviews research contributions from the psychology of text comprehension on how readers integrate inconsistent information from multiple sources. We concentrate on two key processes: The construction of an interconnected representation of sources and text contents, and the evaluation of the acquired information. We begin by briefly discussing the standard approach of single-text comprehension theories to representational coherence. Then, we examine the Documents Model Framework and other, associated proposals that claim that readers can achieve coherence of divergent text contents by constructing a representation of the texts which integrates information about the sources of the contents. We also consider the role of source evaluation as a reader strategy for constructing a single, coherent solution. Finally, we discuss theoretical and practical implications and we make suggestions for further readings.

Deaf individuals have unique sensory and linguistic experiences that influence how they read and become skilled readers. This review presents our current understanding of the neurocognitive underpinnings of reading skill in deaf adults. Key behavioural and neuroimaging studies are integrated to build a profile of skilled adult deaf readers and to examine how changes in visual attention and reduced access to auditory input and phonology shape how they read both words and sentences. Crucially, the behaviours, processes, and neural circuity of deaf readers are compared to those of hearing readers with similar reading ability to help identify alternative pathways to reading success. Overall, sensitivity to orthographic and semantic information is comparable for skilled deaf and hearing readers, but deaf readers rely less on phonology and show greater engagement of the right hemisphere in visual word processing. During sentence reading, deaf readers process visual word forms more efficiently and may have a greater reliance on and altered connectivity to semantic information compared to their hearing peers. These findings highlight the plasticity of the reading system and point to alternative pathways to reading success.

Perceptual dialectology is the study of the thoughts, beliefs and attitudes that nonlinguists have about their dialect landscapes. The field foregrounds these perceptions which have been historically presumed to be of only peripheral significance in linguistic research. One of the most influential tools for studying the perceptions of nonlinguists has been the mental map task, in which participants are asked to indicate on a map where specific varieties of a language can be found, providing a label for each region delimited. This article examines the history of mental mapping in perceptual dialectology, explores recent advances in the collection, analysis and processing of such maps using Geographic Information Systems tools and other technological advancements, and provides insights about how these advances are allowing researchers to answer more questions about connections between language use, language perception, place, people and identities.

Age is one of the key variables in the field of language variation and change (LVC). The vast majority of experimental work generally views a speaker's date of birth—chronological age—as a good reflection of both their social age, for example, which generation they identify with and how strongly and their biological age, that is, the physiological age of their body. This paper aims to provide the reader with tools to tease apart these three ways of conceptualising the variable of age. It reviews qualitative and quantitative methods from fields adjacent to LVC that will enable linguists of different theoretical interests to tap into biological and social aspects of ageing. In doing so, it provides a practical manual for linguists wishing to work from a more multifaceted understanding of one of the key variables in many linguistic subfields.