Text Understanding and Learning : The Effects of Text's Linguistic Features on Comprehension and Memory

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The role of language involved in text understanding and memory was investigated by utilizing multiple perspectives from applied linguistics, psycholinguistics, and theoretical linguistics. The effects of the text's linguistic features and the comprehender's linguistic knowledge on the process of text/discourse comprehension and the construction of memory representation were examined in the context of Japanese and English as a first and a second language.1. In view of applied linguistics and psycholinguistics, we have examined how linguistic knowledge and text's content structure may affect text comprehension and memory individually and interactively.(1) Empirical studies were conducted in order to analyze the effect of vocabulary and grammar knowledge in second-language learners who have different first-language backgrounds (Horiba et al., 2003, 2004), a text's coherence and linguistic knowledge (Horiba, 2005), the breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge (Horiba et al., 2005), workin … More g memory (Harrington, 2003), vocabulary recognition speed and language proficiency (Harrington, 2005) in text comprehension. (2) Studies were also conducted to analyze the relationship between text's content structure and questions in a reading comprehension test (Kobayashi, 2005), and to develop the depth- and breadth-of-vocabulary- knowledge test in Japanese (Horiba et al., 2005).2. In view of theoretical linguistics, we have analyzed some linguistic phenomena in terms of how we use or perceive the language in text/discourse, rather than how we structure single sentences.(1) Theoretical studies were conducted on language phenomena observed in text environment such as the right dislocation construction (Hasegawa & Watanuki, 2003), gapped or truncated constructions (Hasegawa, 2004, 2005 ; Okura, 2004), and conditional clauses (Inoue, 2004). (2) Studies were also conducted on the relation between text's information structure and syntactic structure (Inoue, 2003), and the role of syntax in cohesion in discourse (Inoue, 2005), proposing a theoretical-linguistic basis for the study of discourse-syntax interface which sheds a new light on text understanding and production. Less