Abstract
The comprehension of connectives is crucial for understanding the discourse relations that make up a text. We studied connective comprehension in English to investigate whether adult comprehenders acquire the meaning and intended use of connectives to a similar extent and how connective features and individual differences impact connective comprehension. A coherence judgment study indicated that differences in how well people comprehend connectives depend on the lexical transparency but not on the frequency of the connective. Furthermore, individual variation between participants can be explained by their vocabulary size, nonverbal IQ, and cognitive reasoning style. Print exposure was not found to be relevant. These findings provide further insight into the factors that influence discourse processing and highlight the need to consider individual differences in discourse comprehension research as well as the need to examine a wider range of connectives in empirical studies of discourse markers.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 381-403 |
Number of pages | 23 |
Journal | Discourse Processes |
Volume | 61 |
Issue number | 8 |
Early online date | 19 Mar 2024 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Sept 2024 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2024 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
Funding
This project received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme (ERC Starting Grant ’Individualized Interaction in Discourse’, grant agreement No. 948878).
Funders | Funder number |
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European Research Council | |
European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme | 948878 |