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    THE ROLE OF LITERAL MEANING IN THE COMPREHENSION OF NON-LITERAL CONSTRUCTIONS

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    Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72630/1/j.1467-8640.1992.tb00373.x.pd

    구동사의 구문문법기반 교수가 한국인 고등학생의 사역이동구문과 결과구문의 습득에 미치는 영향

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    학위논문 (석사) -- 서울대학교 대학원 : 사범대학 외국어교육과(영어전공), 2021. 2. 김기택.The present study explored the effects of instruction of verb-particle construction (VPC) based on construction grammar on the learning of the prototypical caused-motion construction (CMC) and transitive resultative construction (TRC) by Korean high school students. According to Celce-Murcia and Larson-Freeman (1999), VPC can be divided into three categories based on its semantics: literal VPC, aspectual VPC, and idiomatic VPC. Goldberg (2015) regards VPC as one of the important constructions in English and contends that it inherits functional and formal properties from CMC and TRC, bearing semantic and syntactic resemblances. That is to say, literal VPC is a type of CMC and aspectual VPC is a form of TRC. The current study investigated effects of learning literal VPC (i.e., a subtype of CMC) on the acquisition of the prototypical CMC and those of learning aspectual VPC (i.e., a subtype of TRC) on the acquisition of the prototypical TRC. The participants for the study were divided into two instructional groups: a literal VPC instructional group and an aspectual VPC instructional group. Both groups participated in two lessons and two testing sessions (i.e., a pre-test and a post-test). The pre- and post-tests examined the acquisition of the prototypical CMC and TRC by the participants and two tasks were administered: picture description and English-to-Korean translation. The former tested the participants’ production of the prototypical CMC and TRC, while the latter examined the participants’ comprehension of the prototypical CMC and TRC. Results revealed that learning literal VPC based on the construction grammar framework enhanced the acquisition of the prototypical CMC. The literal VPC group showed greater improvement than the aspectual VPC group in both production and comprehension tasks. As for the acquisition of the prototypical TRC, the aspectual VPC group experienced an enhancement in the acquisition of TRC. Meanwhile, learning literal VPC also facilitated the acquisition of the prototypical TRC, suggesting that CMC and TRC are two instance constructions of one category and that constructions do not exist independently but are connected to one another in a hierarchical network. Improvements in the acquisition of the prototypical TRC were more conspicuous than the learning of the prototypical CMC in both groups. These findings showed that the construction grammar-based instruction of VPC promotes the acquisition of the linguistically related constructions (i.e., prototypical CMC and TRC), offering pedagogical implications on English education in Korea and teaching and learning VPC in EFL settings.본 연구는 구문문법에 기반한 구동사의 학습이 한국 고등학교 영어학습자들의 원형의 영어사역이동구문과 영어결과구문의 학습에 미치는 영향을 살펴보았다. Celce-Murcia와 Larson-Freeman(1999)에 따르면 구동사는 의미적으로 방향이나 장소의 이동을 나타내는 직접구동사와, 상태의 변화를 나타내는 상구동사, 그리고 관용적인 표현을 나타내는 관용구동사로 나눌 수 있다. Goldberg(2015)는 이러한 구동사를 하나의 구문(Construction)으로 간주하고, 형태와 기능상의 자질상속을 바탕으로 직접구동사를 사역이동구문의 한 종류, 상구동사는 결과구문의 한 형태로 정의한다. 따라서 직접구동사나 상구동사의 학습이 각각의 원형구문, 즉, 원형의 사역이동구문과 결과구문의 습득에 미치는 영향을 파악하기 위해 학생들을 두 집단으로 나누었다. 한 그룹에게는 구문문법에 기반하여 직접구동사를 교수하고, 다른 그룹에게는 구문문법에 기반한 상구동사를 교수하였다. 모든 교수 집단은 2차시의 수업과 2번의 평가(사전, 사후)에 참여하였다. 각 평가는 원형의 사역이동구문과 결과구문의 습득을 검사하였으며 학생들은 두 가지의 과업을 수행하였다: 그림 묘사 과업, 문장 해석 과업. 첫 과업은 학생들의 구문 사용을 검사하였고, 두번째 과업은 학생들의 구문 이해를 평가하였다. 실험결과, 구문문법에 기반한 구동사의 학습으로 인한 교수하지 않은 원형의 사역이동구문과 결과구문의 습득과 관련하여 유의미한 현상들이 발견되었다. 첫째, 직접구동사의 학습이 원형의 사역이동구문의 습득을 향상시켰다. 직접구동사 교수그룹은 상구동사 교수그룹보다 원형의 사역이동구문 습득에 더욱 큰 향상을 보였으며 과업의 종류에 관계없이 큰 향상을 보였다. 둘째, 상구동사 교수그룹은 원형의 결과구문 습득에 더욱 큰 향상을 보였다. 상구동사 교수그룹의 학생들은 두 가지 과업 모두에서 유의미한 향상을 보였다. 직접구동사 교수그룹 역시 원형의 결과구문의 습득에 향상을 보였는데 이는 구문이 각각 독립적으로 존재하는 것이 아니고 위계적 그물망안에서 서로 연결되어 있음을 시사한다. 또한, 두 그룹 모두 원형의 결과구문 습득의 향상이 원형의 사역이동구문 습득의 향상보다 더욱 두드러졌다. 이상의 발견에 근거하여, 본 논문은 구문문법에 기반한 구동사의 학습이 언어적 관련도가 깊은 다른 논항구조구문(즉, 원형의 사역이동구문과 결과구문)의 습득에 긍정적인 영향을 미침을 밝히며, 구문문법적 접근이 체계적인 언어의 습득과 더불어 영어의 생산성 향상에 효과적일 수 있다는 가능성을 시사하였다.ABSTRACT i TABLE OF CONTENTS iii LIST OF TABLES vi LIST OF FIGURES vii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1 1.1. Statement of the Problem and Purposes of the Study 1 1.2. Organization of the Thesis 8 CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 9 2.1. Construction Grammar as a Theoretical Background 9 2.1.1. Construction Grammar 9 2.1.2. Caused-Motion Construction 14 2.1.3. Transitive Resultative Construction 17 2.1.4. Construction Learning 18 2.1.4.1. Construction Learning in the First Language 18 2.1.4.2. Construction Learning in English as a Foreign Language Context 21 2.2.Verb-Particle Construction 24 2.2.1.The Semantic Features of VPC 24 2.2.2. The Default Structure of VPC 27 2.2.3. The Relationship with CMC and TRC 29 CHAPTER 3. METHODOLOGY 35 3.1. Participants 35 3.2. Target Form 36 3.3. Procedure 40 3.4. Instruction 41 3.4.1. Literal VPC Instruction 42 3.4.2. Aspectual VPC Instruction 45 3.5. Test 48 3.5.1. Picture Description 49 3.5.2. English-to-Korean Translation 50 3.6. Analysis 50 CHAPTER 4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 52 4.1. Learning the Prototypicla CMC 52 4.1.1. Picture Description Task 52 4.1.1.1.Results of between-group analysis 54 4.1.1.2. Results of between-level analysis 56 4.1.2. English-to-Korean Transalation Task 58 4.1.2.1. Results of between-group analysis 60 4.1.2.2. Results of between-level analysis 61 4.1.3. Discussion 64 4.2. Learning the Prototypicla TRC 67 4.2.1. Picture Description Task 67 4.2.1.1. Results of between-group analysis 69 4.2.1.2. Results of between-level analysis 69 4.2.2. English-to-Korean Translation 70 4.2.2.1. Results of between-group analysis 72 4.2.2.2. Results of between-level analysis 69 4.2.3. Discussion 74 CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION 78 5.1. Major Findings and Pedagogical Implications 78 5.2. Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research 80 REFERENCES 82 APPENDICES 93 ABSTRACT IN KOREAN 110Maste

    Metaphor processing and the acquisition of idioms: A mentalistic model

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    In this paper I review some of the theoretical issues surrounding metaphor, investigating the understanding of metaphor-based constructions from a developmental psycholinguistic view. Reviewing the classification of metaphorical expressions, I elaborate on the morphological aspect of idioms; thus on the typology of metaphors, distinguishing them on the basis of their decomposability and conventionality (Gibbs 1994). I hypothesize a new, mentalistic model of interpretation, in which our mentalizing, intention-reading skills play a key role in deciphering intended (figurative) meaning. Furthermore, I point out the importance of decomposability and conventionality determining our interpretative processes; both factors playing a facilitating role in interpretation

    Speaker-specific processing of anomalous utterances

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    Existing work shows that readers often interpret grammatical errors (e.g., The key to the cabinets *were shiny) and sentence-level blends (“without-blend”: Claudia left without her headphones *off) in a non-literal fashion, inferring that a more frequent or more canonical utterance was intended instead. This work examines how interlocutor identity affects the processing and interpretation of anomalous sentences. We presented anomalies in the context of “emails” attributed to various writers in a self-paced reading paradigm and used comprehension questions to probe how sentence interpretation changed based upon properties of the item and properties of the “speaker.” Experiment 1 compared standardised American English speakers to L2 English speakers; Experiment 2 compared the same standardised English speakers to speakers of a non-Standardised American English dialect. Agreement errors and without-blends both led to more non-literal responses than comparable canonical items. For agreement errors, more non-literal interpretations also occurred when sentences were attributed to speakers of Standardised American English than either non-Standardised group. These data suggest that understanding sentences relies on expectations and heuristics about which utterances are likely. These are based upon experience with language, with speaker-specific differences, and upon more general cognitive biases

    Processing of the English Verb Particle Construction in Persons with Aphasia

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    This study examined comprehension of verb particle constructions in persons with aphasia (PWA) and young and older typical adults according to the semantic classes by Jackendoff (2002). The experimental task focused on the following three classes of verb particle constructions: idiomatic, directional, and aspectual verb particles. Movement of the object NP also was examined. The study involved a picture-matching task counterbalanced for each participant. The results revealed that PWAs showed slower than normal overall processing, slower processing of aspectual verb forms, and slower processing of syntactic form regardless of movement. Error analysis revealed a bias toward the meaning of the verb, particularly on aspectual verb constructions for all three groups. Accuracy data revealed no significant differences between groups although the aphasic group was less accurate in idiomatic verb forms. The results support current literature on the processing of syntactic structures in PWA

    El significado ilocutivo en una base de conocimiento: El caso de las peticiones

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    This paper focuses on conventionalized requests such as Can you X?, which are here considered to be constructions or entrenched parings of form and function. We first offer a concise account of how such illocutionary constructions have been approached from the point of view of Construction Grammar, to then provide the reader with their computational treatment within the knowledge base for Natural Language Processing systems known as FunGramKB. In so doing, four constructional domains are formalized in the COREL metalanguage. The overall aim of this paper is to contribute further evidence that the construction-based approach, which lies at the basis of the FunGramKB Grammaticon, is relevant for the investigation of language processingEste artículo se centra en peticiones convencionalizadas como Can you X? (Puedes…?), que aquí se entienden como construcciones o pares de forma y significado. En primer lugar ofrecemos una descripción concisa de dichas construcciones ilocutivas desde el punto de vista de la Gramática de Construcciones, para después presentar un tratamiento computacional de las mismas dentro de la base de conocimiento para el Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural denominada FunGramKB. Al hacerlo, proponemos la formalización de cuatro dominios construccionales a través del metalenguaje COREL. El objetivo general de este artículo es aportar evidencias de que el enfoque construccionista, en el que se basa el Gramaticón de FunGramKB, es relevante para la investigación del procesamiento del lenguajeThis article is based on the R&D Project within the framework of the Programa Operativo FEDER Andalucía 2014-2020, Junta de Andalucía, code B-HUM177-UGR1

    Illocutionary meaning in a knowledge Base: The case of requests

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    This paper focuses on conventionalized requests such as Can you X?, which are here considered to be constructions or entrenched parings of form and function. We first offer a concise account of how such illocutionary constructions have been approached from the point of view of Construction Grammar, to then provide the reader with their computational treatment within the knowledge base for Natural Language Processing systems known as FunGramKB. In so doing, four constructional domains are formalized in the COREL metalanguage. The overall aim of this paper is to contribute further evidence that the construction-based approach, which lies at the basis of the FunGramKB Grammaticon, is relevant for the investigation of language processingEste artículo se centra en peticiones convencionalizadas como Can you X? (Puedes…?), que aquí se entienden como construcciones o pares de forma y significado. En primer lugar ofrecemos una descripción concisa de dichas construcciones ilocutivas desde el punto de vista de la Gramática de Construcciones, para después presentar un tratamiento computacional de las mismas dentro de la base de conocimiento para el Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural denominada FunGramKB. Al hacerlo, proponemos la formalización de cuatro dominios construccionales a través del metalenguaje COREL. El objetivo general de este artículo es aportar evidencias de que el enfoque construccionista, en el que se basa el Gramaticón de FunGramKB, es relevante para la investigación del procesamiento del lenguaj

    A nyelvelsajátítás társas-kognitív és pragmatikai vetületei fejlődéstani szemszögből

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    The dissertation is rooted in an empirical study investigating the social-cognitive background of the different aspects of pragmatic competence (metaphor-, humor-, irony comprehension and the recognition of the infringement of conversational maxims), and their relationship to Theory of Mind (ToM) skills. The empirical study serving as the backbone of the dissertation is based on two ToM tests: a verbal, first- and second order test (Wimmer and Perner 1983) and a novel non-verbal eyes-test developed by the author (Schnell 2012). We compare nonverbal and verbal ToM test results with performance in both verbal and non verbal tasks of pragmatic competence to see if there is a verbal performance limitation as hypothesized by some researchers in cognitive development (Astington and Jenkins 1999). The results suggest that ToM skills and pragmatic competence do correlate, and that verbal ToM tasks prove to be more predictive in forecasting pragmatic abilities. Furthermore, the cognitive mechanisms responsible for humor and irony processing are different. Children were more successful in irony tasks than in humor tasks, suggesting that they rely on different heuristics, possibly on a short-cut strategy in irony comprehension, and make use of ToM skills only when simpler heuristics and mental strategies fall short or do not suffice. The dissertation also targets neuropragmatic investigations, mapping noncompositional processing abilities (conventional metaphor, unconventional metaphor, irony, humor and success in maxim infringement recognition) in schizophrenia, tracking the cognitive mechanisms of interpretation with fMRI brain imaging techniques. The findings reveal that irony processing is in fact easier than that of metaphor and humor not only in the developmental but also in the pathological conditions since a compensatory strategy triggered by salient prosody and intonation (i.e. distinctive features of irony) and by linguistic surface cues provides a shortcut in the deciphering of intended meaning. This also reveals that irony and metaphor processing seem to be based on fairly distinct cognitive mechanisms, just as irony and humor interpretation. These findings on the cognitive background of holistic interpretation provide a novel and fruitful framework for clarifications in the otherwise fuzzy definitional overlap of these polysemous forms of language in cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics and humor research. Neuropragmatic investigations also confirm the facilitating role of contextual cues in interpretation, revealing that in the irony with surface cue condition success rates of patients’ understanding ironies significantly improved, what’s more, cues even normalized brain activation patterns. The results provide important data for the resolution of long-standing debates on the relationship of language and mentalization: whether there is a relationship between the two at all and if so, what the direction of this relationship may be. The findings of the present investigation suggest a bidirectional relationship between ToM and language in cognitive development where basic level mentalization is indispensable for early language acquisition, then language takes the lead by providing embedded structures which serve as the framework of embedded thoughts, thus ToM, our guideline in attributing thoughts when deciphering speaker’s intention and thus speaker’s meaning. Then this basic mentalizing ability gives ground to further linguistic, i.e. pragmatic development enabling productive, interactive discourse organization. The dissertation contributes to current social-cognitive and psycholinguistic research in that it investigates different aspects of pragmatic competence and their cognitive developmental background; clarifies fuzzy definitions of metaphor vs. irony and humor vs. irony; examines all four maxims of the Gricean CP concurrently, and applies not only prefabricated but spontaneous and non verbal humor stimuli. Furthermore, its methodology integrates current theoretical debates, namely, if verbalization truly represents a form of performance limitation. In doing so, a novel non-verbal test of mentalization is created, outlined, and adapted for the age group of the sample. It also discusses developmental findings parallel to neurocognitive research results. In the neuropragmatic chapters the study relies on fMRI brain imaging technique, which reflects the conviction that speech processing is a function of the human brain, and in understanding the psycholinguistics of non-compositional language comprehension neurocognitive processes need to be integrated. The dissertation thus applies a methodology that stems from natural sciences, and sees language as an important part of human biology. It also advocates the view that in understanding the working of the human mind language needs to play a key role, and has to serve as a crucial pillar of investigation

    Hearing meanings: the revenge of context

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    According to the perceptual view of language comprehension, listeners typically recover high-level linguistic properties such as utterance meaning without inferential work. The perceptual view is subject to the Objection from Context: since utterance meaning is massively context-sensitive, and context-sensitivity requires cognitive inference, the perceptual view is false. In recent work, Berit Brogaard provides a challenging reply to this objection. She argues that in language comprehension context-sensitivity is typically exercised not through inferences, but rather through top-down perceptual modulations or perceptual learning. This paper provides a complete formulation of the Objection from Context and evaluates Brogaards reply to it. Drawing on conceptual considerations and empirical examples, we argue that the exercise of context-sensitivity in language comprehension does, in fact, typically involve inference

    The role of constituents in multiword expressions: An interdisciplinary, cross-lingual perspective

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    Multiword expressions (MWEs), such as noun compounds (e.g. nickname in English, and Ohrwurm in German), complex verbs (e.g. give up in English, and aufgeben in German) and idioms (e.g. break the ice in English, and das Eis brechen in German), may be interpreted literally but often undergo meaning shifts with respect to their constituents. Theoretical, psycholinguistic as well as computational linguistic research remain puzzled by when and how MWEs receive literal vs. meaning-shifted interpretations, what the contributions of the MWE constituents are to the degree of semantic transparency (i.e., meaning compositionality) of the MWE, and how literal vs. meaning-shifted MWEs are processed and computed. This edited volume presents an interdisciplinary selection of seven papers on recent findings across linguistic, psycholinguistic, corpus-based and computational research fields and perspectives, discussing the interaction of constituent properties and MWE meanings, and how MWE constituents contribute to the processing and representation of MWEs. The collection is based on a workshop at the 2017 annual conference of the German Linguistic Society (DGfS) that took place at Saarland University in Saarbrücken, German
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