Text Comprehension: A Synthetic Psychological/Linguistic Framework

The article describes an interdisciplinary framework which we have developed to study verbal text comprehension based on a combination of psychological and linguistic approaches. The comprehension phenomenon is considered to be a result of a reversible transformation between verbal symbols and mental images of the to-be-comprehended material, with the obligatory condition of preserving its semantic invariance. We emphasize a gradual nature of comprehension and its reliance on a coordinated activity of the recipient's cognitive and emotional mechanisms. We pay particular attention to the negative potential of subjective projections in the comprehension process. We also describe the method of in-depth semi-structured interview, which allows for a multi-level explication of the processes involved in building up a mental representation of the text’s content. As a model for studying the comprehension phenomenon, we suggest a short story "Invisible Japanese Gentlemen" by G. Greene, which has a complex intrinsic structure of implicit meanings. Using linguostylistic and propositional analyses, we described the story’s structure of implicit meanings and identified its various elements (87 in total) and 66 key textual propositions. The reliability analysis showed a high degree of consistency between the experts' (ɑ = 0.6 for elements, ɑ = 0.67 for propositions). This indicates that this text and the structure of its implicit meanings can serve as an adequate stimulus material for studying the comprehension phenomenon. Finally, based on in-depth semi-structured interview data (N = 30), we developed a set of quantitative criteria for assessing the completeness of text comprehension on a 5-point scale.

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