Social cognition and Relevance: How stereotypes impact the processing of definite and indefinite descriptions

This paper focuses on the impact of social cognition thes processing linguistic information. More specifically, it brings some insights to Relevance theory's construal Meaning NN , which seeks account for non-propositional meanings. It shows, through two experiments, how gender and nationality-related stereotypes guide definite indefinite descriptions. Experiment 1 consists a self-paced reading task (with 59 French native speakers), introducing information confirming vs. violating within nominal phrase (NP). The NP (e.g., “chirurgien/chirurgienne”, “surgeon male/female ”) was itself introduced either by article (presupposition) or an (assertion). Results showed that costlier process than stereotype-congruent Moreover, when violated stereotypes, descriptions became significantly ones, because they required identification salient referent contradicted stereotypical expectations. 2 tested effects in 49 speakers). Participants read NPs referring representatives country. subsequently paired with confirmed nationality stereotypes. contradicting were Furthermore, (which promote single occurrence reading) failed facilitate compared generalized representation category). Overall, present findings are consistent research show stereotype-incongruent affect sentence processing. Importantly, while revealed affected markers, suggested markers could not modulate