Cover not available

In: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

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

On the processing of Free Indirect Discourse

First results and methodological challenges

 | University of Göttingen
 | University of Göttingen
 | University of Göttingen
Published online: 25 May 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.247.07sal
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
References (34)
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.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Asher, N. & Lascarides, A. 2003. Logics of Conversation. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Banfield, A. 1973. Narrative style and the grammar of direct and indirect speech. Foundations of Language 10(1): 1–39.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1982. Unspeakable Sentences. Boston MA: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barr, D. 2008. Analyzing ‘visual world’ eyetracking data using multilevel logistic regression. Journal of Memory and Language 59(4): 457–474.Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bortolussi, M. & Dixon, P. 2003. Psychonarratology: Foundations for the Empirical Study of Literary Response. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar logo with link to 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.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bray, J. 2007. The ‘dual voice’ of free indirect discourse: A reading experiment. Language and Literature 16(1): 37–52.Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eckardt, R. 2014. The Semantics of free indirect discourse. How Texts Allow to Mindread and Eavesdrop. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fludernik, M. 1993. The Fictions of Language and the Languages of Fiction. Oxford: Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garnham, A. 1981. Mental models as representations of text. Memory & Cognition 9(6): 560–565.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Genette, G. 1994. Die Erzählung. Stuttgart: UTB.Google Scholar logo with link to 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.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harris, J. A. 2012. Processing Perspectives. PhD dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst.Google Scholar logo with link to 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 logo with link to Google Scholar
Hegarty, M. & Waller, D. 2004. A dissociation between mental rotation and perspective-taking spatial abilities. Intelligence 32(2): 175–191.Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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 logo with link to 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 logo with link to 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.Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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 logo with link to 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.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
László, J. 1986. Same story with different point of view. SPIEL 5: 1–22.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Long, D. L. 1994. The effects of pragmatics and discourse style on recognition memory for sentences. Discourse Processes 17(2): 213–234.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maier, E. 2012. Switches between direct and indirect speech in ancient Greek. Journal of Greek Linguistics 12(1): 118–139.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2014. Mixed quotation: The grammar of apparently transparent opacity. Semantics and Pragmatics 7: 1–67.Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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 logo with link to 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.Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sharvit, Y. 2008. The puzzle of free indirect discourse. Linguistics and Philosophy 31(3): 353–395.Google Scholar logo with link to Google 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.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yao, B. & Scheepers, C. 2011. Contextual modulation of reading rate for direct versus indirect speech quotations. Cognition 121(3): 447–453.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Harris, Jesse A.
2021. Extended Perspective Shift and Discourse Economy in Language Processing. Frontiers in Psychology 12 DOI logo
Bimpikou, Sofia
2020. Who Perceives? Who Thinks? Anchoring Free Reports of Perception and Thought in Narratives. Open Library of Humanities 6:2 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 november 2025. 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.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue