Alexandra Kratschmer Valentina Bambini romakhum au dk Institute
Alexandra Kratschmer - Valentina Bambini romak@hum. au. dk Institute of Language, Literature and Culture, Univ. of Aarhus, DK Cognition, Communication and Culture Research Cluster, Univ. of Aarhus, DK Laboratory of Linguistics, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, IT v. bambini@sns. it UNDERSTANDING AND MISUNDERSTANDING LITERAL AND NON-LITERAL SPEECH Psycholinguistic evidence on how the cognitive system processes meaning along the literal/non-literal continuum HOW DO PEOPLE UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER? • To understand each other, people have to invest a vast range of cognitive abilities, among which attention, intention, and social competence (Heijnen et al. , 2006) • But with all these preconditions met, understanding still depends on a shared code that can transport a message, i. e. , a meaning HOW DO PEOPE DECODE MEANING? • Understanding is made possible by the stability of form-meaning connections, i. e. , by the existence of core (literal) meaning (Ariel, 2002; Bertucceli Papi, 2003) • However, when put in context, meanings become unstable and are subject to adjustments, e. g. , narrowing, broadening, approximation, up to the so-called non-literal meanings (among which metaphor and irony) (Wilson, 2003) HOW DO PEOPLE TELL LITERAL FROM NON-LITERAL MEANING? • In fact, sometimes they don’t. Most of the time conversations run smoothly, meaning adjustments guaranteeing communication • Yet, when the form-meaning connections are highly unconventional, possible misunderstandings may occur: irony is not always understood and neither indirect exhortations or metaphors • In addition, there exist a range of pathologies with specific deficit in understanding non-literal speech, e. g. autism (Frith & Frith, 2003) THE LITERAL/NON-LITERAL CONTINUUM: A MATTER OF TRUTH-VALUE Following Grice, we assumed that the determination of literal-non literal meaning is sensitive to evaluation of truth-value We worked out four values on the continuum: • Assertive categorization (literally true) • Categorization modalized by to seem (literally ≤ true) • Comparison installed by to seem (literally < true) • Metaphor (literally false, but true on a non-literal level) That lawyer is an intern assertive categorization literal level truth-value true non-literal level truth-value That lawyer seems a civil lawyer an actor categorization comparison modalized by “to seem” ≤ true (with a reserve) < true (as a comparison) That lawyer is a shark metaphor false < true • The poles of the continuum are certainly different for the brain (cf. Bambini, 2008) • The intermediate positions are well-documented in linguistics (cf. Kratschmer, in press), but not with brain data PUTTING OUR ASSUMPTIONS TO THE TEST: Testing discrimination along the literal/non-literal continuum based on truth-value assignment TRUTH-VALUE ASSIGNMENT TASK Subjects: 11 students Stimuli: 43 groups of 4 passages placed along the assumed literal/non-literal continuum Did you hear the speech of that lawyer? He is an intern/He seems a civil lawyer/He seems an actor/He is a shark. Task: Determining the truth-value of the literal reading of the passages: true (T), true with a reserve (TR), true as a comparison (TC), false (F) Results • High statistical correlation between intended and decoded readings (range: 94, 71 - 98, 23 %) • There is a context-related distinctability of the four readings, with major distinctability on the poles, and potential ambiguities in the centre of the continuum % A KEY TO UNDERSTAND MISUNDERSTANDING • Truth-value assignment is one of the processes supporting literal/non-literal distinctions • Truth-value assigment is part of the epistemic abilities in humans, i. e. , our ability to reflect on our knowledge (Cfr. POSTER BY BAMBINI & KRATSCHMER) • Disruptions in the epistemic abilities may lead to misunderstanding, as it happens in pathological conditions • Even in non-pathological conditions, difficulties in the epistemic assessment may lead to misinterpretation
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