DPKog | Publikationen

Loureda, Ó., & López Serena, A. (2013). La reformulación discursiva entre lo oral y lo escrito: una aproximación teórica y experimental. Oralia, 221-258.

 ABSTRACT

This paper analyses what we call discursive formulation and reformulation processes (e.g., (re)formulation instances which are exclusively the result of enunciation processes and hence lack any semantic value) in the frame of a text linguistics model that aims to give a systematic account of very different reformulation facts from a multidimensional perspective. The theoretical considerations supporting our conception of discursive reformulation are submitted to an experimental investigation procedure, whose results substantiate our view that discursive reformulation (a prototypical device for spoken language) is quantitatively and qualitatively different from semantic-argumentative reformulation (the one that has deserved most of the attention in the bibliography). For this reason, we maintain that its study needs analytical procedures and theoretical concepts that differ from the ones already applied to the examination of written texts.

KEYWORDS

reformulation, discursive reformulation, discursivity, communicative immediacy vs distance, spoken vs. written language, discourse markers, experimental pragmatics

Loureda, Ó., Nadal, L., & Recio, I. (2016). Partículas discursivas y cognición. 'Sin embargo’ y la conexión contraargumentativa. In E. Sainz González, I. Solís García, F. del Barrio de la Rosa, & I. Arroyo Hernández (Hgg.), Geométrica explosión: Estudios de lengua y literatura en homenaje a René Lenarduzzi (ss. 175-186). Venedig: Edizioni Ca’Foscari.

 ABSTRACT

Discourse particles are intentional cues used in communication to guide information processing. In this paper, we analyzed the contribution of the Spanish counter-argumentative connective sin embargo to constrain inferential processes by means of an eye-tracking experiment. Results show that sin embargo regulates the cognitive effort needed to process utterances. Furthermore, approaching the study of discourse particles experimentally allows obtaining a three-dimensional image-cognitive, language-specific and discursive-of these elements.

Loureda, Ó., Cruz, A., Recio, I., & Villalba, C. (2014). El adverbio de foco incluso en posición pre- y postfocal: un análisis experimental de los costes de procesamiento de estructuras informativas con foco marcado. Revista de la Sociedad Española de Lingüística, 44, 95-129.

 ABSTRACT

One of the challenges for the study of discourse particles lies in describing the relationship between particles and their position (Briz and Pons 2010). Such is the case of incluso, which can be employed either in a pre-focal or post-focal position. Assuming that incluso in a post-focal position takes on a value of discourse reformulation (López Serena and Loureda 2013) that is added to the addition and focalization values traditionally attributed to it (Santos Río 2003, Fuentes Rodríguez 2009), we take an experimental approach to analyze if the confluence of those values has an effect on the cognitive effort needed to reconstruct a communicated assumption and leads to differentiated rocessing patterns.

KEYWORDS

focus, discourse reformulation, incluso, eye-tracking, processing effort

Loureda, Ó., Cruz, A., Rudka, M., Nadal, L., Recio, I., & Borreguero, M. (2015). Focus Particles in Information Processing: An Experimental Study on Pragmatic Scales with Spanish incluso. Focus particles in the Romance and Germanic languages. Experimental and corpus-based approaches, Linguistic online, 71(2), 129-151.

 ABSTRACT

Focus particles have been one of the spotlights of linguistic research during the last fifty years. They have been studied mainly from a syntactic and semantic perspective, in formal and functional approaches. However, in the last years new insights in this field have been developed through pragmatic and textual approaches. From that perspective, focus particles can be considered as a type of discourse particles, as far as their semantic nature and their pragmatic function are concerned. In this paper, we claim that experiments on text processing may help to support this view: by analyzing eye movements during reading and by testing the effective comprehension of utterances, we can demonstrate the key role of the Spanish scalar additive particle incluso ('even') in the process of information retrieval.

Olza, I., Loureda, Ó., & Casado Velarde, M. (Hgg.). (2014). Language Use in the Public Sphere: Methodological Perspectives and Empirical Applications. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

 ABSTRACT

Since the turn of the new millennium religion has entered fully into identity politics. Debates and controversies surrounding religion abound all over the world. Ongoing geopolitical circumstances mean that this is sure to continue. The questions of how religions are treated, and how they should be treated, in media, education, and public life are therefore of great significance that merit thorough consideration by scholars, professionals, and the general public. This edited volume provides fascinating insights into the mechanisms of communication and how they are related to the issues surrounding religion and public life in several national contexts. From astute analyses of media portrayal of religions in Britain, to the issue of the European Court's ruling on the crucifix in Italian classrooms, and the reporting of debates over public wearing of the Islamic veil in Spain and Quebec, the essays in this book inform, entertain, and examine judiciously pressing problems concerning communication and religion in today's world. In an area of study that is often partisan and sensationalist, this tome is methodologically rigorous. It would serve as an excellent introduction to the general reader interested in understanding further the relatively new field of discourse studies. Part One consists of nine scholarly articles that together give an overview of the main methods used in this field. This makes the book invaluable to researchers and graduate students in the social sciences. The variety of approaches suggested and the discussion offered by different authors linking innovative ideas with other scholarly traditions, such as Philosophy, also make this handy edition readable, relevant and accessible to the non-specialist. The volume is the result of the collaboration of an international group of scholars from Spain, Britain, Belgium, Italy, Canada and Germany who are interested in the study of religion in public discourse. Consequently it offers pioneering research and methodological reflection that are otherwise unavailable in English-language publications. The ten articles in Part Two will be of particular interest to the general reader wanting to understand media reporting on religions, and the contribution discourse analysis can bring to understanding these issues. For example, in a fascinating chapter, Ruth Breeze problematises the treatment of religion in British media by presenting a fine-grained analysis of the reporting of religious controversies in four national daily newspapers: The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Sun, and The Daily Mirror. Her analysis reveals the complexities of reporting about the wearing of religious symbols, suggesting that some newspapers can at times ‘frame’ minority religions more favourably than when reporting Christianity. In three separate essays utilising different methodological approaches, Inés Olza, Sira Hernández Corchete, Beatriz Gómez-Baceiredo, Ramón González and Dámaso Izquierdo Alegría consider similar issues in Spain. They too suggest the ideologies of national newspapers can affect their treatment of religions and give a detailed account of how narratives and texts are subtly manipulated and produced in order to reinforce political positions. This is a timely, scholarly edition that will have an impact beyond the academic community. As everyone has a vested interest in the fairness and sincerity of debates about religion in the public sphere, this volume is to be welcomed as a thorough, detailed scientific examination of what can be often emotive issues. Its dispassionate and rigorous style serves as a prompt to remind us that we ignore truth at our peril in an age when religious controversies will persist.

Loureda, Ó., Cruz, A., & Forschungsgruppe DPKog (2013). Aproximación experimental sobre los costes de procesamiento de las partículas focales del español también e incluso. Cuadernos AISPI. Estudios de lenguas y literaturas ibéricas e iberoamericanas, 2 - Nuevas tendencias en la lingüística del discurso, 75-98.

 ABSTRACT

In this investigation we obtain data from an experimental method (eyetracking) about the efect of discourse particles (the Spanish focus particle también and incluso) in the information processing.

KEYWORDS

focus, experimental pragmatics, eyetracking, discourse particles, information processin

Loureda, Ó., & Borreguero, M. (2013). Los marcadores del discurso: ¿un capítulo inexistente en la NGLE? Lingüística Española Actual, 181-210.

 ABSTRACT

There is no chapter devoted to discourse markers in the new grammar published by the Real Academia Española (NGLE), which is coherently structured according tolexical categories. However, these units are described in the chapter devoted to theadverb. In this paper, we present some thoughts on the way discourse markers aredescribed in this work: to what extent the recent proposals that have been made in this field of study have been subscribed by the academics and whether the authors oft he grammar have included some novelties regarding more traditional descriptions.

KEYWORDS

discourse markers, NGLE, adverbs, connectives, focus particles

Loureda, Ó., Nadal, L., & Recio, I. (2016). El significado procedimental y las partículas discursivas del español: una aproximación experimental. Revista Signos. Estudios de Lingüística, 49, 52-77.

 ABSTRACT

El objetivo de nuestro trabajo es mostrar que, debido a su significado fundamentalmente procedimental, las partículas discursivas son unidades lingüísticas que funcionan como instrucciones para guiar ostensivamente al oyente en el procesamiento de la información. En base a un conjunto de estudios de lectura autocontrolada por eyetracker, se ha analizado de qué forma contribuyen conectores contraargumentativos y partículas focales a restringir los cómputos inferenciales durante los procesos de comprensión en la lectura de enunciados. Los resultados de dichos experimentos que hemos realizado muestran una serie de evidencias empíricas que permiten sostener tres argumentos teóricos en relación con las partículas discursivas: a) las partículas discursivas no son unidades irrelevantes en la comunicación (cfr. § 2.1); b) las partículas discursivas tienen un significado fundamentalmente procedimental (cfr. § 2.2); y c) los itinerarios de procesamiento que originan las distintas partículas discursivas en los enunciados dependen de la interacción de dos factores: las propiedades de las partículas discursivas y las propiedades del enunciado en el que estas se insertan (cfr. § 2.3).

Loureda, Ó., Nadal, L., & Recio, I. (Hgg.). (2016). Partículas discursivas y cognición: por tanto y la conexión argumentativa (Vol. 67). Berlin: de Gruyter Mouto.

 ABSTRACT

In this paper we present experimental evidence on how the Spanish consecutive connective por tanto (en. “furthermore”) rearranges inferential routes in comprehension processes and guides the reader towards a mental representation. Por tanto does not generate an argumentative relation between the discourse segments it combines. Rather, under normal circumstances, it simply makes such a relation explicit, since the segments are already argumentatively co-oriented due to their lexical content. In an eye-tracking reading experiment we compared the processing patterns of utterances in which discourse segments were connected by means of por tanto versus utterances with juxtaposed segments. A speed-up effect of por tanto on the second segment was found for the total reading time, thus confirming that, due to their procedural meaning, discourse particles add information to utterances, while, at the same time, they guide, facilitate and rearrange processing

Nadal, L., Recio, I., Rudka, M. & Loureda, Ó.(2017). Processing additivity in Spanish: incluso vs. además. In A. De Cesare & C. Andorno (Hgg.), Focus on Additivity. Adverbial modifiers in Romance, Germanic and Slavic languages (ss. 137-154). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

 ABSTRACT

This paper offers an experimental analysis of how additive discourse relations are processed in Spanish. The processing data were obtained from an eye-tracking reading experiment on utterances in which the focus operator incluso 'even' and the additive connective además 'furthermore' were either absent or present. Incluso acts fundamentally on the level of the information structure, whereas además is generally found in argumentative relations. Results show that, despite some differences during semantic and syntactic integration, the presence of a discourse marker affects principally high-level processing. These results seem to underpin theoretical studies that claim for a mainly procedural meaning of discourse m

Parodi, G., Julio, C., & Recio, I. (2018). When words and graphs move the eyes: The processing of multimodal causal relations. Journal of Eye Movement Research, 11(1):5.

 ABSTRACT

Research on causal relations in multisemiotic texts constituted by words and graphs has been scarce with only a few exceptions. In the current study, eye movement behavior was studied in seventy-six Chilean high school students, who read a set of twelve causally-related economics texts in Spanish in four experimental conditions. The objective is twofold. We aimed, on the one hand, to observe the main effects of the causal discourse marker (DM) por tanto and the statistical causal graph (G), as well as the interaction effect of both variables on different eye tracking measures. On the other, we seek to observe the effects of the DM on the same eye tracking measures for the graph system (GS) area of interest (AOI). The findings showed that the conjoint presence of the DM and the G did not positively influence the processing of selected AOIs. Analyses also reveal no significant effects on the GS AOI. Thus, the results indicate that the DM tend to decrease processing times, while the G increases them. Additional analyses conducted on the integrative transitions between the verbal system and the graph system reveal that more transitions were identified between the consequence segment and the graph system, thereby confirming that the consequence segment is crucial for the integration of both semiotic systems.