From cohesion in text to coherence in comprehension
Text comprehension involves the construction of a coherent mental representation of the situations cohesively described by the text. We use the term 'coherence' for these representational relationships and 'cohesion' for the textual indications that coherent representations should be built. Both cohesion and coherence can be indicated by lexical information (vocabulary-driven) or by grammatical information (grammar-driven). In either case, five types of coherence can result: REFERENTIAL, LOCATIONAL, CAUSAL, TEMPORAL AND ADDITIVE strands, corresponding to identification of the who, where, why, when and what. This thesis asks how textual cohesion supports representational coherence, by addressing two research questions: 1. To what extent is each of the types of cohesion independent of the others in its effects on the comprehender? 2. Does coherence develop incrementally throughout the comprehension process, does it come about delayed in a final wrapping-up stage of the comprehension process, or both? To explore effects of vocabulary-driven cohesion on coherence, a connectionist model is used. Vocabulary-driven cohesion is represented as a large number of weighted relations between the elements of the situations
Louwerse, Max Mike
From cohesion in text to coherence in comprehension. Text comprehension involves the construction of a coherent mental representation of the situations cohesively described by the text. We use the term 'coherence' for these representational relationships and 'cohesion' for the textual indications that coherent representations should be built. Both cohesion and coherence can be indicated by lexical information (vocabulary-driven) or by grammatical information (grammar-driven). In either case, five types of coherence can result: REFERENTIAL, LOCATIONAL, CAUSAL, TEMPORAL AND ADDITIVE strands, corresponding to identification of the who, where, why, when and what. This thesis asks how textual cohesion supports representational coherence, by addressing two research questions: 1. To what extent is each of the types of cohesion independent of the others in its effects on the comprehender? 2. Does coherence develop incrementally throughout the comprehension process, does it come about delayed in a final wrapping-up stage of the comprehension process, or both? To explore effects of vocabulary-driven cohesion on coherence, a connectionist model is used. Vocabulary-driven cohesion is represented as a large number of weighted relations between the elements of the situations
cohesion_text coherence comprehension text_comprehension involve construction coherent mental_representation situation describe text use term coherence representational relationship cohesion textual indication coherent representation build cohesion_coherence indicate lexical_information vocabulary driven grammatical information grammar driven either case type coherence referential locational causal temporal additive strand correspond identification what asks textual_cohesion support representational coherence address two_question extent type cohesion independent others effect coherence develop incrementally throughout comprehension process come delay final stage comprehension process explore effect vocabulary driven cohesion_coherence connectionist model use vocabulary driven cohesion represent large_number weight relation element situation