This paper evaluates whether or not simplicity or "minimalistic" heuristics, which are posited to account for local ambiguity resolution at the level of structural processing and for the lack of inferential elaboration during discourse processing, represent the most accurate account of language processing. Evidence from on-line studies is presented which suggests that alternative, more knowledg...

Why an iconic gesture takes its particular form is a largely open question, given the variations one finds across both situations and speakers. We present results of an empirical study that analyzes correlations between contextual factors (referent features, discourse) and gesture features, and tests whether they are systematic (shared among speakers) or idiosyncratic (inter-individually differ...

In this paper lexical cohesion modeling is considered. We argue that to model lexical cohesion in connected texts it is not enough to find related words in a text. It is important to take into account relations between entities participating in the described situations. Consideration of this factor gives the possibility to develop more flexible lexical chaining algorithms and to construct lexic...

This contribution examines the pragmatic approaches of definiteness in εmbɔsì language. The analysis reveals that εmbsì interacts with principles familiarity as regards second mention entity discourse, and identifiability hearer ability to uniquely identify entity. In addition, study shows contextual use definite description is subject different functions. It refers anaphora or situational refe...

Within the framework of social constructionism, psychotherapy has been re-conceptualized as a semiotic process, which consists of the creative generation of new meanings in the context of collaborative discourse. In recent years, research approaches that draw from social constructionism, such as discourse analysis, have been fruitfully employed in the study of psychotherapy processes, whilst be...

The model of definite description interpretation in [Poesio, 1993] is revised to avoid the previous theory’s assumption that the interpretation of definites occurs after scope interpretation has taken place. The processes involved in the interpretation of a definite are formalized as DRS construction rules applying in parallel to generate alternative hypotheses out of underspecified representat...

The aim of this article is to show the influence academic and professional marketing English on Polish discourse. In view Poland’s transformative role in communist Europe, paper can be regarded as a pilot study for discussion phenomenon addressed context experience other post-socialist nations. analysis adaptation borrowings was based numerous documents, participant observations interviews. Cri...

In the spirit of the neuroscience theme of this year’s meeting, I will describe a set of cognitive and neurophysiological phenomena that are important for the processing of narrative text at the discourse level. Text processing depends on sequential structure in language and also in the events that language describes. Semantic representations of events capture perceptual and motor properties of...

We used event-related potentials to examine the interaction between two dimensions of discourse comprehension: (i) referential dependencies across sentences (e.g. between the pronoun 'it' and its antecedent 'a novel' in: 'John is reading a novel. It ends quite abruptly'), and (ii) the distinction between reference to events/situations and entities/individuals in the real/actual world versus in ...