John Benjamins Publishing Company
What’s non-linguistic visual context?
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Abstract
This article contributes to the volume “What is a Context” by delineating “non-linguistic visual context” from a language-processing perspective. Psycholinguistic research has shown that visual context can influence language processing through referential and lexico-semantic links. We review these findings, and discuss incremental visual context effects on language comprehension that emerged even without these links and even when visual context was irrelevant for the comprehension task. The reviewed evidence suggests our notion of non-linguistic visual context must be relatively broad and encompass language-world relationships that go beyond reference or lexico-semantic associations. At the same time, a strong utterance-mediated link seems necessary, predicting visual context effects closely time-locked to relevant words in the utterance and to dynamic motion in visual context.
Abstract
This article contributes to the volume “What is a Context” by delineating “non-linguistic visual context” from a language-processing perspective. Psycholinguistic research has shown that visual context can influence language processing through referential and lexico-semantic links. We review these findings, and discuss incremental visual context effects on language comprehension that emerged even without these links and even when visual context was irrelevant for the comprehension task. The reviewed evidence suggests our notion of non-linguistic visual context must be relatively broad and encompass language-world relationships that go beyond reference or lexico-semantic associations. At the same time, a strong utterance-mediated link seems necessary, predicting visual context effects closely time-locked to relevant words in the utterance and to dynamic motion in visual context.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
- Introduction 1
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Part I. Linguistic perspectives on context
- What is a context? 9
- Context in neurolinguistics 33
- Theorising context 55
- Context 81
- Contexts in interaction 105
- What’s non-linguistic visual context? 129
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Part II.Case studies on context
- Emergent contexts 153
- The role of context in interpreting implicit meaning aspects 175
- Contextually enriched argument linking 199
- Modelling context within a constraint-based account of quantifier usage 229
- Subject and name index 251
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Linguistic perspectives on context
- What is a context? 9
- Context in neurolinguistics 33
- Theorising context 55
- Context 81
- Contexts in interaction 105
- What’s non-linguistic visual context? 129
-
Part II.Case studies on context
- Emergent contexts 153
- The role of context in interpreting implicit meaning aspects 175
- Contextually enriched argument linking 199
- Modelling context within a constraint-based account of quantifier usage 229
- Subject and name index 251
