- •Language comprehension
- •Input reading 1
- •Exploratory task 1.1
- •Exploratory task 1.2
- •Input reading 2
- •Warming up discussion 2.1
- •Match the following word-recognition theories and theoretical propositions
- •Exploratory task 2.1
- •Exploratory task 2,2 Match the given metaphorical and idiomatic phrases with their meaning intepretation
- •Input reading 3 Theories of sentence comprehension
- •Exploratory task 3.1
- •Exploratory task 3.2
- •Input reading 4
- •Exploratory task 4.2
- •Exploratory task 4.3 What prior knowledge do you need to comprehend the text? (Mask the “tip” while doing the task)
- •Exploratory task 4.4
- •Exploratory task 4.5
- •Exploratory task 4.6
- •Exploratory task 4.7
- •Exploratory task 4.10
- •Exploratory task 4.11
- •Input reading 5
- •Exploratory task 5.1
- •Exploratory task 5.2
- •Exploratory task 5.3
- •Exploratory task 5.4
- •Exploratory task 5.5
- •Exploratory task 5.6
- •Exploratory task 5.7 Read this short joke and compile the “grammar” of this story in the space provided
- •Exploratory task 5.8
- •Exploratory task 5.9
- •Reference and further reading
- •Eysenck, m. And m. Keane. 1995. Cognitive Psychology. Psychology Press Harley., t. The Psychology of Language. Psychology Press. 1995
Exploratory task 1.2
Read the following text and indicate the “concept” that the text implies, the legal “category” that the text deals with and the “propositions” that you can infer from the text.
Text |
Concept |
Category |
Propositions |
Now the lawyer picked up the paper. “To Charles Sanford Babbitt, I give by 1949 Buick. I also give him my roses”. Charles did not like what he was hearing. “ I am leaving my three million dollars and my house to someone who is very important to me”. Charles was beginning to get very angry. “I am only your father’s lawyer”, said the man (Abridged from Fleicher, L. 1998. Rain Man. Penguin Readers. P.8-9) |
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Input reading 2
Word comprehension
Warming up discussion 2.1
Match the given images (A,B and C) with their possible “names” (1,2 and 3). Comment on how you manage to comprehend what these words mean?
A B C
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Words are “deep waters” (Book of Proverbs. Old Testament). There are several theories of word recognition. The first theory of word recognition is the motor theory (Liberman, A. Cited in Eysenck., M. And M. Keane. Cognitive Psychology. Psychology Press. 1995. P. 280-281). This theory argued that listeners and readers engage in a certain amount of mimicking the articulator movements, though these movements are very subtle. Another recognition theories is the logogen model (Morton, J. cited in Harley., T. The Psychology of Language. Psychology Press. 1995. P. 90-94) ). Every word we know consists of a set of simple features. In order to recognise a word we need to recognise more and more features of the word until comprehension is reached. When this individual level of evidence about the word is reached the word is recognised. The cohort model of word-recognition (Marslen-Wilson, W. cited in Harley, T. 1995. P. 58-62) suggests that we set up a possible cohort (group) of the possible words that could be meaningful in this particular situation. Items are then eliminated from this "list" until only one most suitable is left in the focus of attention. This is the "recognition point" of the word. (After Eysenck, M. and M. Keane. 1995. P. 281). The process of inferring meaning from the words can be hampered for reasons of ambiguous lexical meaning. Homonyms and synonyms can create ambiguity in word comprehension. Homonyms (words that sound the same and thus produce a polysemy) can create ambiguity, which is resolved with the help of the context. (After Aitchison, J. 1999. The Articulate Mammal. An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. L. N.Y. P. 224). Homonyms often create a pun effect. E.g. “What is black and white, and red all over?” (It is a “newspaper” because it is “read all over”). Lexical ambiguity can be created by a “cultural gap” between the participants in communication. E.g. “May day” in Western Europe means flowers because “May day” in Western Europe is children’s festival to mark reappearance of flowers.
SAQ 2.1