Focal attention, voice, and word order

Tomlin, Russell S.

doi:10.1075/tsl.30.18tom

Cited by 163 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Tomlin (1995) found that participants often mention a given element in a description of a scene first, if their attention is directed towards it. If an arrow is pointed towards a dark fish as it is being eaten by a lighter fish, English speakers will tend to describe the scene with a passive construction ("the dark fish is being eaten by the light fish"), whereas they will use an active construction if an arrow points their attention to the light fish ("the light fish eats the dark fish").…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Grammatical category influences lateralized imagery for sentences

Stroustrup¹,

Wallentin

2017

Lang. cogn.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

a b st r a c t Natural language syntax has previously been thought to reflect abstract processing rules independent of meaning construction. However, grammatical categories may serve a functional role by allocating attention towards recurrent topics in discourse. Here, we show that listeners incorporate grammatical category into imagery when producing stick figure drawings from heard sentences, supporting the latter view. Participants listened to sentences with transitive verbs that independently varied whether a male or a female character (1) was mentioned first, (2) was the agent or recipient of an action, and (3) was the grammatical subject or object of the sentence. Replicating previous findings, we show that the first named character as well as the agent of the sentence tends to be drawn to the left in the image, probably reflecting left-to-right reading direction. But we also find that the grammatical subject of the sentence has a propensity to be drawn to the left of the object. We interpret this to suggest that grammatical category carries discursive meaning as an

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Grammatical category influences lateralized imagery for sentences

Stroustrup¹,

Wallentin

2017

Lang. cogn.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Reports by R. Tomlin (1995Tomlin ( , 1997 suggested arguably the strongest support for the idea that orienting of attention influences syntactic structure in speech production. Tomlin designed a computer animation program called the "Fish Film" (Figure 2).…”

Section: Attention and The Grammar Of Discoursementioning

confidence: 99%

“…English speakers varied assignment of the syntactic subject depending on the visual cue (Tomlin 1995). When the patient fish was cued and was then eaten by the agent fish the subjects said, "the dark fish was eaten by the light fish".…”

Section: Attention and The Grammar Of Discoursementioning

confidence: 99%

Attention and empirical studies of grammar

Myachykov¹,

Tomlin²,

Posner³

2005

The Linguistic Review

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This often leads to certain adaptations of the cognitive theory of attention to language research. One of such adaptations was suggested by Russ Tomlin under a notion of attention detection (Tomlin, 1995(Tomlin, , 1997. Attention detection effectively collapses operations from Posner's three-partite set by distinguishing only between focused and non-focused attention.…”

Section: Attention and Language Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, we provide a very brief outline of what attention is. Second, we discuss the nature and the corresponding evidence of the two theoretical accounts that relate attention to syntactic choice: the grammatical role account (e.g., Tomlin, 1995) and the positional account (e.g., Myachykov, 2007;Myachykov, Posner, & Tomlin, 2007). In brief, the former account suggests that the focused referent is mapped as the most prominent grammatical constituent in a sentence (e.g., Subject); the latter maintains that the attentionally focused referent tends to occupy the sentential starting point regardless of its grammatical status.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attention and syntax in sentence production: A critical review

Myachykov¹,

Garrod²,

Scheepers³

2009

discours

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:People often speak about visually perceived events that unfold in real time. In doing so speakers regularly translate the details of the visual world they describe onto the grammatical properties of the sentences about it. For example, the speaker needs to map her constantly changing attentional state onto the syntactic plan of the produced sentences. The present paper briefly discusses what attention is, explores methods for the co-activation of attentional and syntactic operations during the production of visually-mediated sentences in languages with different syntactic properties, and reviews the evidence for a regular link between the speaker's choice of sentential structure and the distribution of the speaker's attention to the event's referents. Also, it discusses evidence for interactive properties of attentional and other types of priming on the speaker's syntactic choice. Based on reviewed literature, we conclude that attention plays a crucial role in directing lexical and grammatical choices in human discourse. At the same time, the organization of the language's grammar reciprocates this influence by constraining the extent to which the distribution of attention can affect the real-time syntactic choices. Finally, we discuss how attentional priming engages in complex interactions with other priming effects: it interacts with lexical priming but not with syntactic priming, supporting an encapsulated view of sentence formulation. Keywords:attention, syntax, word order, sentence production Résumé:On parle souvent des événements alors qu'on est en train de les percevoir visuellement. Les locuteurs doivent alors projeter les détails du monde visuel qu'ils sont en train de décrire sur les propriétés grammaticales des phrases qui le décrivent. . Ainsi, le locuteur doit répercuter les changements constants de son état attentionnel sur la structure syntaxique des phrases qu'il produit. Le présent article discute brièvement de ce qu'est l'attention, puis présente les méthodes pour observer la coactivation des opérations attentionnelles et syntaxiques lors de la production de phrases résultant d'explorations visuelles, dans des langues ayant des propriétés syntaxiques différentes. Nous passons ensuite en revue les arguments en faveur d'un lien entre le choix du locuteur quant à la structure de la phrase et le partage de son attention sur les référents de l'événement. Nous discutons également des données mettant en évidence les propriétés interactives de l'amorçage attentionnel et d'autres types d'amorçage sur les choix syntaxiques du locuteur. Sur la base de la littérature, nous concluons que l'attention joue un rôle fondamental dans les choix lexicaux et grammaticaux du locuteur, tandis que la grammaire de chaque langue détermine, à son tour, dans quelle mesure la distribution de l'attention peut affecter les choix syntaxiques en temps réel. Enfin, nous exposons comment l'amorçage attentionnel interagit avec d'autres effets d'amorçage : il interagit avec l'amorçage lexical mais pas avec l'amorçage synt...

show abstract

Focal attention, voice, and word order

Cited by 163 publications

References 0 publications

Grammatical category influences lateralized imagery for sentences

Grammatical category influences lateralized imagery for sentences

Attention and empirical studies of grammar

Attention and syntax in sentence production: A critical review

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About