Discourse Representation And Text Processing

Discourse Representation and Text Processing

Discourse Representation and Text Processing

The interrelated topics of discourse representation and text processing are amongst the most important in psycholinguistic research, and have generated a vast literature. This collection is not intended as an overview of this work, rather it focuses on some of the central issues that arise out of the mental models theory of text comprehension. According to this theory, the content of discourse is represented in mental models of parts of the real or an imaginary world, and these models are constructed incrementally as texts are processed. Mental models theory emphasises the role of anaphoric expressions, such as definite pronouns, in linking the information in different parts of the text and, more generally, the role of inferences in constructing mental models. It also recognises the importance of formal linguistic processes, such as semantic combination, in computing the information in the current clause that is to be added into the model. The papers in this volume reflect these aspects of mental models theory. They cover the understanding of noun-noun combinations, the interpretation of pronouns, and inference making. Throughout, the emphasis is on the flexibility of the language processing system and its extensive, and often extremely rapid, use of knowledge about the world. International interest in mental models theory is reflected in contributions from the United States, the United Kingdom and Continental Europe, where there is a rapidly growing interest in experimental psycholinguistics in general and mental models theory in particular. Language and Cognitive Processes is an international journal which publishes theoretical and experimental research into the mental processes and representations involved in language use. The psychological study of language has attracted increasing interest over the past three decades, and Language and Cognitive Processes provides a common focus for this enterprise. It is a journal which emphasises the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to the study of language. Apart from research in experimental and developmental psychology, Language and Cognitive Processes publishes work derived from linguistics, philosophy, computer science and Artificial Intelligence.

Text and Text Processing

The book presents the state-of-the-art in major aspects of text analysis and cognitive text processing by some of the most well-known European and American researchers in the field of text-linguistics and cognitive psychology. Comprehensive views and new perspectives are proposed in the following topics: cognitive and metacognitive aspects of text processing, structures and processes involved in the construction of multi-level semantic representations in relation with text and reader characteristics, achievement of local and global coherence of meaning during reading and comprehension, assessment of knowledge, knowledge acquisition of concepts and complex systems by text, and cognitive and metacognitive aspects of text production.