Reading between the lines: psycholinguistic indices of prediction and formulaicity in language comprehension

Bulkes, Nyssa Z

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/98231 Copy

Description

Title

Reading between the lines: psycholinguistic indices of prediction and formulaicity in language comprehension

Author(s)

Bulkes, Nyssa Z

Issue Date

2017-06-13

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Tanner, Darren

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Tanner, Darren

Committee Member(s)

• Christianson, Kiel
• Garnsey, Susan
• Ionin, Tania

Department of Study

Linguistics

Discipline

Linguistics

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Psycholinguistics
• Idioms
• Figurative language
• Formulaic language
• Sentence processing
• Second language acquisition
• Eyetracking

Abstract

A comprehensive model of language processing must account for not only how people process literal language, but also how nonliteral language is processed. Further, of theoretical interest to psycholinguists is the role that prediction plays in language processing, namely the conditions under which anticipating linguistic forms and structures can facilitate language comprehension. L1 research has underscored prediction as facilitative; namely, the more informative the surrounding context, the more readers anticipate upcoming information. Research using the transposed-letter (TL) effect shows that a target with transposed letters (cholocate) are read faster than targets containing substitutions (choeotate), as letter position/identity are encoded separately (Perea & Lupker, 2003, 2004). Luke and Christianson (2012) demonstrated that higher semantic constraints lead to specific expectations for letter position/identity, showing that TL effects index prediction. While L2 research has investigated prediction in L2 processing, this research primarily addresses comprehension of literal language. In cases of semantically opaque—or idiomatic—language, it is unclear whether phrase literality affects predictive mechanisms in L1 or L2 processing. Finally, it is also unclear whether semantic opacity differentiates how expressions—literal or nonliteral—are stored and retrieved from the lexicon, namely in cases where dimension such as whole-string or substring frequency are controlled for. Results from three experiments in this dissertation support a dual-route model of language processing, where the mode of processing that is employed is ultimately determined by context.

Graduation Semester

2017-08

Type of Resource

text

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/98231

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2017 Nyssa Bulkes

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