Cover not available
Part of
Linguistic Foundations of Narration in Spoken and Sign Languages
Edited by Annika Hübl and Markus Steinbach
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 247] 2018
► pp. 143–172

On the processing of Free Indirect Discourse

First results and methodological challenges

| University of Göttingen
| University of Göttingen
| University of Göttingen

In this contribution we report on the results from two psycholinguistic experiments investigating the processing of Free Indirect Discourse (FID). We conceive of FID as a linguistic means that cues comprehenders to take over the perspective of a protagonist in third-person narrations. Using both on-line and off-line measures, we tested the hypothesis that the referent of the protagonist receives a higher activation status during reading if his or her thoughts are related through FID. The FID cues we used were questions and discourse particles. In addition, we compared different inferential statistic procedures in the analysis of the results. Although the cues that were employed as FID markers in the experimental materials had an influence on the perception of narrative perspective, no indication was found for the hypothesis that narrative perspective mediated through FID influences the salience of the protagonist during reading. We discuss the implications of this null result and point to some more general methodological problems arising in the investigation of processing of literary text.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
  • 3.Experimental evidence
    • 3.1Materials
    • 3.2Pilot 1: Off-line questionnaire study
    • 3.3Pilot 2: Expert rating
    • 3.4Experiment 1: Self-paced reading
      • 3.4.1Experiment 1: Procedure
      • 3.4.2Experiment 1: Design and predictions
      • 3.4.3Experiment 1: Results
        • Data treatment
        • Proportion of correct answers
        • Reading Times per Word in Target Sentence
        • Response latencies
      • 3.4.4Experiment 1: Discussion
    • 3.5Experiment 2: Self-paced reading and memory test
      • 3.5.1Materials
      • 3.5.2Procedure
      • 3.5.3Participants
      • 3.5.4Experiment 2: Design and predictions
      • 3.5.5Experiment 2: Results
        • Data treatment
        • Proportion of correct answers
        • Reading times per word in target sentence
        • Response latencies
        • Memory test
      • 3.5.6Experiment 2: Discussion
  • 4.General discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 25 May 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.247.07sal
References
Ariel, M.
2001 Accessibility theory: An overview. In Text Representation: Linguistic and Psycholinguistic Aspects [Human Cognitive Processing 8], T. Sanders, J. Schilperoord, & W. Spooren (eds), 29–87. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Asher, N. & Lascarides, A.
2003 Logics of Conversation. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Banfield, A.
1973 Narrative style and the grammar of direct and indirect speech. Foundations of Language 10(1): 1–39.Google Scholar
1982 Unspeakable Sentences. Boston MA: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Barr, D.
2008 Analyzing ‘visual world’ eyetracking data using multilevel logistic regression. Journal of Memory and Language 59(4): 457–474.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barr, D. J., Levy, R., Scheepers, C. & Tily, H. J.
2013 Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: Keep it maximal. Journal of Memory and Language 68(3): 255–278.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bortolussi, M. & Dixon, P.
2003 Psychonarratology: Foundations for the Empirical Study of Literary Response. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Bransford, J. D., Barclay, J. R. & Franks, J. J.
1972 Sentence memory: A constructive versus interpretive approach. Cognitive Psychology 3(2): 193–209.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bray, J.
2007 The ‘dual voice’ of free indirect discourse: A reading experiment. Language and Literature 16(1): 37–52.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clark, H. H.
1973 The language-as-fixed-effect fallacy: A critique of language statistics in psychological research. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 12(4): 335–359.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eckardt, R.
2014 The Semantics of free indirect discourse. How Texts Allow to Mindread and Eavesdrop. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Fludernik, M.
1993 The Fictions of Language and the Languages of Fiction. Oxford: Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar
Garnham, A.
1981 Mental models as representations of text. Memory & Cognition 9(6): 560–565.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Genette, G.
1994 Die Erzählung. Stuttgart: UTB.Google Scholar
Gundel, J. K., Hedberg, N. & Zacharski, R.
1993 Cognitive status and the form of referring expressions in discourse. Language 69(2): 274–307.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Harris, J. A.
2012 Processing Perspectives. PhD dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst.Google Scholar
2014 Shifting Viewpoints and Discourse Economy. Poster presented at the 27th annual CUNY conference on human sentence processing, Ohio State University, USA.Google Scholar
Hegarty, M. & Waller, D.
2004 A dissociation between mental rotation and perspective-taking spatial abilities. Intelligence 32(2): 175–191.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hewitt, L.
1995 Anaphor in subjective contexts in narrative fiction. In Deixis in Narrative: A Cognitive Science Perspective, G. B. J. F. Duchan & L. Hewitt (eds), 325–339. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Holler, A. & Irmen, L.
2007 Empirically assessing the effects of the right frontier constraint. In Anaphora: Analysis, Algorithms and Applications. DAARC 2007. LNAI-Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, A. Branco (ed.), 15–27. Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar
Jaeger, T. F.
2008 Categorical data analysis: Away from anovas (transformation or not) and towards logit mixed models. Journal of Memory and Language 59(4): 434–446.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kaiser, E. & Cohen, A.
2012 Free indirect discourse and perspective-taking. Poster presented at the annual conference Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP), Riva del Garda, Italy. https://dl.[URL]
Kintsch, W.
1998 Comprehension: A paradigm for cognition. Cambridge, MA: CUP.Google Scholar
Kotovych, M., Dixon, P., Bortolussi, M. & Holden, M.
2011 Textual determinants of a component of literary identification. Scientific Study of Literature 1(2): 260–291.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
László, J.
1986 Same story with different point of view. SPIEL 5: 1–22.Google Scholar
Long, D. L.
1994 The effects of pragmatics and discourse style on recognition memory for sentences. Discourse Processes 17(2): 213–234.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maier, E.
2012 Switches between direct and indirect speech in ancient Greek. Journal of Greek Linguistics 12(1): 118–139.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2014 Mixed quotation: The grammar of apparently transparent opacity. Semantics and Pragmatics 7: 1–67.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nieuwenhuis, R., Pelzer, B. & te Grotenhuis, M.
2012 influence.me. Tools for Detecting Influential Data in Mixed Effects Models. Version 0.9.2.Google Scholar
Sanford, A. J., Moar, K. & Garrod, S. C.
1988 Proper names as controllers of discourse focus. Language and Speech 31(1): 43–56.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schlenker, P.
2004 Context of thought and context of utterance: A note on free indirect discourse and the historical present. Mind & Language 19(3): 279–304.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sharvit, Y.
2008 The puzzle of free indirect discourse. Linguistics and Philosophy 31(3): 353–395.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Simmons, J. P., Nelson, L. D. & Simonsohn, U.
2011 False-positive psychology: Undisclosed flexibility in data collection and analysis allows presenting anything as significant. Psychological Science 22(11): 1359–1366.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yao, B. & Scheepers, C.
2011 Contextual modulation of reading rate for direct versus indirect speech quotations. Cognition 121(3): 447–453.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Bimpikou, Sofia
2020. Who Perceives? Who Thinks? Anchoring Free Reports of Perception and Thought in Narratives. Open Library of Humanities 6:2 DOI logo
Harris, Jesse A.
2021. Extended Perspective Shift and Discourse Economy in Language Processing. Frontiers in Psychology 12 DOI logo
Holler, Anke
2019. Alles eine Frage der Perspektive – Zur sogenannten erlebten Rede im narrativen Text. Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik 47:1 ► pp. 28 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.