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Opinion piece: how people structure representations of discourse
Version 2 2023-06-12, 09:42
Version 1 2023-06-09, 22:49
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-12, 09:42 authored by Alan GarnhamAlan GarnhamMental models or situation models include representations of people, but much of the literature about such models focuses on the representation of eventualities (events, states, and processes) or (small-scale) situations. In the well-known event-indexing model of Zwaan, Langston, and Graesser (1995), for example, protagonists are just one of five dimensions on which situation models are indexed. They are not given any additional special status. Consideration of longer narratives, and the ways in which readers or listeners relate to them, suggest that people have a more central status in the way we think about texts, and hence in discourse representations, Indeed, such considerations suggest that discourse representations are organised around (the representations of) central characters. The paper develops the idea of the centrality of main characters in representations of longer texts, by considering, among other things, the way information is presented in novels, with L’Éducation Sentimentale by Gustav Flaubert as a case study. Conclusions are also drawn about the role of representations of people in the representation of other types of text.
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Publication status
- Published
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- Published version
Journal
Dialogue and DiscourseISSN
2152-9620Publisher
Dialogue and Discourse Board of Editors.External DOI
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1Volume
12Page range
1-20Department affiliated with
- Psychology Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2021-01-20First Open Access (FOA) Date
2021-03-02First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2021-01-19Usage metrics
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