Abstract
Highlighting the role context plays in shaping our linguistic behaviour is the major contribution of pragmatics to language research. Indeed, pragmatics has shifted the focus of research from the code to contextual inference (Carston, 2002; Sperber & Wilson, 1986/1995). It is widely agreed now that contextual information is a crucial factor determining how we make sense of utterances. The role of context is even more pronounced within a framework that assumes that the code is underspecified allowing for top-down inferential processes to narrow meanings down and adjust them to the specific context.
Corresponding author
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Ariel, M. (in press). Pragmatics and Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bates, E. (1999). On the nature and nurture of language. In E. Bizzi, P. Calissano and V. Volterra (eds), Frontiere della biologia [Frontiers of Biology]. The Brain of Homo Sapiens. Rome: Giovanni Trecanni.
Binder, K. S., and Rayner, K. (1999). Does contextual strength modulate the subordinate bias effect? A reply to Kellas and Vu. Psychonomic Bulleting and Review 6: 518–22.
Carston, R. (2002). Thoughts and Utterances: The Pragmatics of Explicit Communication. Oxford: Blackwell.
Duffy, S. A., Morris, R. K., and Rayner, K. (1988). Lexical ambiguity and fixations times in reading. Journal of Memory and Language 27: 429–46.
Fodor, J. (1983). The Modularity of Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Gernsbacher, M. A. (1990). Language Comprehension as Structure Building. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Gibbs, R. W. Jr. (1994). The Poetics of Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Giora, R. (1985a). Towards a theory of coherence. Poetics Today 6: 699–716.
Giora, R. (1985b). A text-based analysis of nonnarrative texts. Theoretical Linguistics 12: 115–35.
Giora, R. (1997). Understanding figurative and literal language: The graded salience hypothesis. Cognitive Linguistics 7:183–206.
Giora, R. (2003). On Our Mind: Salience, Context, and Figurative Language. New York: Oxford University Press.
Giora, R., Peleg, O., and Fein, O. (2004). Resisting contextual information: You can’t put a salient meaning down. Paper submitted for publication.
Grice, P. H. (1975). Logic and Conversation. In P. Cole and J. Morgan (eds), Speech Acts: Syntax and Semantics vol. 3: 41–58. New York: Academic Press.
Hillert, D., & Swinney, D. (2001). The processing of fixed expressions during sentence comprehension. In A. Cienki, B. Luka and M. Smith (eds), Conceptual and Discourse Factors in Linguistic Structure: 107–22. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
Kawamoto, A. H. (1993). Nonlinear dynamics in the resolution of lexical ambiguity: A parallel distributed processing account. Journal of Memory and Language 32: 474–516.
Marsien-Wilson, W. D., and Tyler, L. K. (1980). The temporal structure of spoken language understanding. Cognition 8: 1–71.
Martin, C., Vu, H., Kellas, G., and Metcalf, K. (1999). Strength of discourse context as a determinant of the subordinate bias effect. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 52A: 813–39.
McClelland, J. L., and Rumelhart, D. E. (1981). An interactive activation model of context effects in letter perception. Part 1: An account of basic findings. Psychological Review 88: 375–407.
McRae, K., Spivey-Knowlton, M. J., and Tanenhaus, M. K. (1998). Modeling the influence of thematic fit (and other constraints) in on line sentence comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language 38: 283–312.
Peleg, O. (2002). Linguistic and nonlinguistic mechanisms in language comprehension. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Tel Aviv University.
Peleg, O., Giora, R. and Fein, O. (2001). Salience and context effects: Two are better than one. Metaphor and Symbol 16: 173–92.
Rayner, K., and Frazier, L. (1989). Selection mechanisms in reading lexically ambiguous words. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 15: 779–90.
Rayner, K., and Morris, R. K. (1991). Comprehension processes in reading ambiguous sentences: Reflections from eye movements. In G. B. Simpson (ed.), Understanding Word and Sentence: 175–98. Amsterdam: North Holland.
Rayner, K., Pacht J. M., and Duffy, S. A. (1994). Effects of prior encounter and global discourse bias on the processing of lexically ambiguous words: Evidence from eye fixations. Journal of Memory and Language 33: 527–44.
Reinhart, T. (1980). Conditions for text coherence. Poetics Today 1: 161–80.
Sereno, C. S., Pacht, J. M., and Rayner, K. (1992). The effect of meaning frequency on processing lexically ambiguous words: Evidence from eye fixations. Psychological Science 3: 269–300.
Sperber, D., and Wilson, D. (1986/1995). Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.
Swinney, D. A. (1979). Lexical access during sentence comprehension: (Re)consideration of context effects. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 18: 645–59.
Vu, H., Kellas, G., Metcalf. K., and Herman, R. (2000). The influence of global discourse on lexical ambiguity resolution. Memory and Cognition 28: 236–52.
Vu, H., Kellas, G., and Paul, S. T. (1998). Sources of sentence constraint in lexical ambiguity resolution. Memory and Cognition 26: 979–1001.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2004 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Peleg, O., Giora, R., Fein, O. (2004). Contextual Strength: the Whens and Hows of Context Effects. In: Noveck, I.A., Sperber, D. (eds) Experimental Pragmatics. Palgrave Studies in Pragmatics, Language and Cognition. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230524125_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230524125_8
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-4039-0351-8
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-52412-5
eBook Packages: Palgrave Language & Linguistics CollectionEducation (R0)