The comprehension and production of non-literal language

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The research program examines the comprehension and production of non-literal language. In this form of language the surface message alone is inconsistent with canonical knowledge held about the world and/or the intention of the speaker. Although such tropes pervade natural language they are problematic for computational models of language comprehension or production, and often prove difficult for people with brain injuries. Moreover, there is little consensus on the processes involved in comprehension and even less known about the contextual factors (linguistic and paralinguistic) used in production to invite a successful communication of intent. In our work to date we suggest that a specialized linguistic processor is not required to understand non-literal language, that a set of linguistic and social cues play an important role in comprehension and that, in general, constraint satisfaction models appear to have the flexibility to explain the somewhat apparently conflicting data found in the archival literature. We intend to systematically examine whether pragmatic factors such as gender, age, or social status play a role in the comprehension and production of metaphor, sarcasm and proverbial language, and how these factors interact with more commonly studied non-pragmatically based aspects of discourse processing (such as semantic overlap, and explicit markers /expectations of the upcoming text). We will employ a set of quite diverse measures: ratings, reading times, constrained production tasks and ERPs (brainwaves linked to specific input). These data, taken with others already obtained in my laboratory will: (1) permit for independent tests of alternative theories of sarcasm processing and production and, (2) permits a direct test of a constraint satisfaction explanation of sarcasm, and (3) permit for the development of a computational model of sarcasm comprehension, based on constraint satisfaction principles. The data will have implications for people with brain injuries unable to "get" the point of non-literal language