UNDERSTANDING AND MISUNDERSTANDINGUNDERSTANDING AND MISUNDERSTANDINGLITERAL AND NON-LITERAL SPEECHLITERAL AND NON-LITERAL SPEECH

Psycholinguistic evidence on how the cognitive system processes meaning Psycholinguistic evidence on how the cognitive system processes meaning along the literal/non-literal continuumalong the literal/non-literal continuum

Alexandra Kratschmer - Valentina Bambini Institute of Language, Literature and Culture, Univ. of Aarhus, DK

Cognition, Communication and Culture Research Cluster, Univ. of Aarhus, DKLaboratory of Linguistics, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, IT

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)

Subjects: 11 studentsStimuli: 43 groups of 4 passages placed along the assumed literal/non-literal continuumDid 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

romak@hum.au.dk v.bambini@sns.it

THE LITERAL/NON-LITERAL CONTINUUM: A MATTER OF TRUTH-VALUE

• 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

TRUTH-VALUE ASSIGNMENT TASK

I FG

BA 39I FG

BA 22

p < 0.005

That lawyer is an intern

assertive categorization

That lawyer seems a civil lawyer

categorization modalized by “to

seem”

That lawyer seems an actor

comparison modalized by “to

seem”

That lawyer is ashark

metaphor

literal leveltruth-value

true ≤ true(with a reserve)

< true(as a comparison)

false

non-literal leveltruth-value

< true

97,25

95,1494,71

98,23

90

100

TRUE

TRUE WITH RESERVE

TRUE AS COMPARISON

FALSE

%

A KEY TO UNDERSTAND MISUNDERSTANDING

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)

• 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