Illustrates ways the theories and methods of linguistics can be used to analyze discourse. Uses reports from American print media discussing facets of the O.J. Simpson case, its verdict, and subsequent events. Suggests that this discourse, viewed as a composite whole, represents a culture's creation, disillusion, and reestablishment of its sense…

Tests how well two models of text comprehension (one referential and one causal) predicted the importance ratings and the recall of procedural texts. Finds better predictive power of the causal model for importance ratings; neither model performed well with recall; and neither model was as predictive of procedural text as they were in previous…

Reports findings of three experiments indicating that story plot unit structure is a good predictor of subjects' thematic judgments about the story, and that subjects are sensitive to a more abstract level of conceptualization than the thematic patterns tested, based on evaluations of the protagonist's plans in the story. (HTH)

Identifies and describes the features of spoken discourse that native speakers of English consider to be indicative of level of intellectual functioning. Discourse criteria include detail, coherence, story construction, storytelling performance, and metacomments. (SR)

Presents an analysis of prose narratives that allows content to be identified as central and provides a priori rationale for why the content is central. Investigates which content is supportive of, or distracting to, the central content. (FL)

Studies the construction of coherent narrations of events in a picture storybook by children and adults. Applies a causal network discourse analysis. Analyzes the structure and content of the network representation of the main character. Reveals differences in content and structure of the narratives. (HB)

Investigates whether spatial situation models are constructed in naturalistic story comprehension. Claims that, during normal reading, readers are not very much engaged in constructing, maintaining, and updating a spatial situation model. (HB)

Explores four views of the role of interclausal connectives as a set of linguistic devices that help the reader interpret a narrative text. Finds that interclausal connectives carry meaning, connect textual meaning at both local and global levels, and mark discourse continuity and discontinuity both in the text and as inferred by the reader. (SR)

Examines how undergraduate readers monitor and evaluate the concerns of characters over the course of a narrative. Discusses what kinds of evaluation the reader makes, what the reader evaluates, the functions that these evaluative inferences serve in comprehension, and the multiple perspectives (character, narrator, or presenter) taken by the…

Shows that getting involved with a story is the primary dimension of story appreciation, and that different readers interact with the same story in different ways. Indicates that the first-person grammatical device invites readers to identify with the main character, but whether or not they do is a complex function of story properties,…

Focuses on the way entities are introduced into discourse, how they are referred to again later, and what motivates speakers to choose particular anaphora to manage reference at a given point in a narrative. Compares anaphoric patterns in English and Mandarin narratives. (HB)

Explores the relationship between linguistic and conceptual structuring of narratives, focusing on linguistic devices used by German and U.S. narrators to identify transitions in text structure. Identifies and outlines two types of narrative orientation: differentiating events and integrating events. (SR)

Investigates how adult readers represent causal relations among events in a narrative, specifically by testing two models of text comprehension, the linear chain of text model versus the network model. Provides support for a network model of the representation of causal relations in narratives. (HB)

Examines the narrative story structure of a short American Sign Language narrative using stylistic analysis plus the structure of pausing in the narrative. (FL)

Use of cognitive capacity was measured during reading of text in six experiments. Results were consistent with a comprehensibility theory stating that when more meaning is produced in reader's cognitive system while reading a text, more cognitive capacity is filled by reading it. (FL)