The study reveals the reading and construal techniques employed in the process of textual entrenchment of indirect nominal groups. Entrenchment is characterized by the conventionalization of the nominal group form and the repeated referent construal scheme. The research discloses whether any repeated indirect nominal group use contributes to its entrenchment which is assessed in the oculographic experiment. It traces the eye-movement techniques and the reference identification index variations signifying the changes in the cognitive load distribution. To define the construal differences occurring in the first and repeated indirect nominal group use, we apply the system of parameters of focusing and process the parametric analysis of the text fragments. We initially hypothesized that the repeated indirect nominal group use will employ defocusing and repeated focusing schemes, however it also employed new focusing schemes. The changing roles of focusing and defocusing were evaluated oculographically and revealed the techniques of both cognitive load decrease and increase, with fixation duration decrease and stable reading regimes correlating with defocusing / repeated focusing, and identification index decrease and longer fixation duration correlating with new focusing. The results give evidence that textual entrenchment is in most cases accompanied by novel construal, and is constrained not solely by the number of repeated indirect nominal group uses but by its new roles in the text and referent construal.

The study explores the combinatorial prevalence effect in Event construal techniques in text and image components of heterosemiotic book pages. We hypothesize that their activity and contingency affect their interpretation, here tested in the oculographic experiment and discourse responses check. To proceed, we develop the parametric system applied for 100 book pages annotation and further statistical analysis. This study reveals the relevance of Truth, Type, Relation, Manageability, Completeness, Instantness, Achievement, Evaluation, Space location, Time location, Repeatability, Cause and effect parameter groups in Event construal in text and image as well as their resonance in concomitant activity. To select the samples serving as stimuli in the oculographic experiment, we apply Principal component analysis, which assigns Uniqueness indices to the samples, here ranging from 0.111 to 0.675, and provides diversity of Event construal techniques to be tested in terms of their interpretation. The results evidence that participants applied different text and image attention distribution patterns with longer fixations on text component in case the image displayed physical contact, static and desirable events. When the creation or destruction events, events-achievement, events located in time or causal events were not present in the text, the participants were more likely to address the image, not the text. Parameter activity also affects the choice of Descriptive, Narrative and Speculative discourse responses, with a restricted number of parameters stimulating Narrative discourse, with a restricted in text and vast in image number of parameters stimulating Speculative discourse, which evidences in favor of their more predetermined and predicted character. Hopefully, the results may be used to predict the interpretation effects and to further cognitive linguistic and semiotic research coordination.

In the study, we address the problem of existing differences in reading and understanding novel metaphors in the text fragments in native and target languages (L1 and L2), with these differences potentially attributed to both the specifics of forming analogies in native and target languages, and the mapping characteristics of metaphors. The study identifies the contingency effects of several primary metaphors onto the gaze behavior and default interpretation of textual novel metaphors in L1 (Russian) and L2 (English). To proceed, we use the text fragments in L1 and L2 containing novel metaphors appearing in more and less focal syntactic positions in a two-stage oculographic experiment. We obtain the participants’ gaze metrics values and the participants’ responses specifying the target domains of the novel metaphors, which further allows us to disclose the contingencies. Methodologically, the study is grounded in the metaphor processing theories developed in cognitive psychology, which explore the structure of analogical reasoning and associative fluency as manifesting potentially different effects in L1 and L2. To validate it, we also address the cognitive linguistic theories which provide the framework for identifying the primary metaphor models (here the models PATIENT (OBJECT) IS AGENT, PARTS ARE WHOLE, CONCRETE IS ABSTRACT) and for testing their effect onto information construal. We hypothesize that reading and understanding metaphors will proceed differently in L1 and L2, which is attributed to associative fluency in metaphor mapping in native and target languages. The experiment results do not show the differences in understanding the mapping model PATIENT (OBJECT) IS AGENT in L1 and L2, whereas these differences appear in understanding the models PARTS ARE WHOLE and CONCRETE IS ABSTRACT with higher default interpretation index in L1. The model PATIENT (OBJECT) IS AGENT is also found to stimulate higher gaze costs. The results suffice to claim that there are differences in the cognitive costs produced by primary metaphor models, which allows us to range and specify their role in information construal in L1 and L2.

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The study develops a functional multimodal approach to speech and gesture behavior to explore aestheticism in more and less staged discourse of cinema and interview. We hypothesize that cinema and interview employ the same communicative functions; however, these functions constitute different frameworks which contribute to the higher aesthetic potential of cinema. This approach allows to study the aesthetic via communicative functions frameworks in multimodal discourse. To establish the function frameworks in cinema and interview, we apply a contrastive functional analysis of speech and gesture in the highly ranked actors’ argumentative and descriptive monologues. With the help of variance and regression analysis, we explore the distribution of pragmatic and discourse-structuring functions (with sub-functions) in speech as contingent on pragmatic, deictic, representational and adaptive functions of gestures. The study confirms that cinematic discourse exploits fewer deictic, representational and adaptive gesture functions, whereas pragmatic gesture functions (especially emphatic ones) appear more frequently and are contingent on several pragmatic and discourse-structuring functions of argumentative and descriptive speech. Interview function frameworks display lower predictability, which shows higher spontaneity of gestures; however, there are specific gestures typical of interview (self-adaptors) which may serve as indicators of pragmatic functions of argumentation. The study also manifests individual variations within the function frameworks. Overall, cinema and interview display variance in replication and regularity of speech and gesture functions, which presumably helps create higher and lower aesthetic effects.