How alliteration enhances conceptual–attentional interactions in reading

Abstract

In linguistics, the relationship between phonological word form and meaning is mostly considered arbitrary. Why, then, do literary authors traditionally craft sound relationships between words? We set out to characterise how dynamic interactions between word form and meaning may account for this literary practice. Here, we show that alliteration influences both meaning integration and attentional engagement during reading. We presented participants with adjective-noun phrases, having manipulated semantic relatedness (congruent, incongruent) and form repetition (alliterating, non-alliterating) orthogonally, as in "dazzling-diamond"; "sparkling-diamond"; "dangerous-diamond"; and "creepy-diamond". Using simultaneous recording of event-related brain potentials and pupil dilation (PD), we establish that, whilst semantic incongruency increased N400 amplitude as expected, it reduced PD, an index of attentional engagement. Second, alliteration affected semantic evaluation of word pairs, since it reduced N400 amplitude even in the case of unrelated items (e.g., "dangerous-diamond"). Third, alliteration specifically boosted attentional engagement for related words (e.g., "dazzling-diamond"), as shown by a sustained negative correlation between N400 amplitudes and PD change after the window of lexical integration. Thus, alliteration strategically arouses attention during reading and when comprehension is challenged, phonological information helps readers link concepts beyond the level of literal semantics. Overall, our findings provide a tentative mechanism for the empowering effect of sound repetition in literary constructs.

Preprint: Out of the Ordinary: Neural correlates of literary form and emotional content in aesthetic engagement with literature

“…The slowing down of reading upon encountering foregrounded language further predicted increased appreciation of the literary works, confirming Mukařovský's theory that the disruption of rapid default processing and increased awareness of stylistic features contributes to aesthetic appreciation (Van den Hoven et al, 2016). Neuroimaging evidence showed that foregrounding devices such as alliteration directly modulate attention and semantic integration (Egan et al, 2020). Evidence from neuroimaging research also shows that certain types of literary language (metaphors, idioms, and irony/sarcasm) increase activation in the parietal attention network (Bohrn et al, 2012), presumably by increasing processing demands.…”

Fractality and Variability in Canonical and Non-Canonical English Fiction and in Non-Fictional Texts

“…The assumption that artistic composition can be measured is most obvious for poetry, with its interplay of meaning and form as manifested in rhythm and rhyme, and other aspects of poetic form, e.g., alliteration (cf. for instance Jakobson, 1960;Leech, 1969;Jacobs, 2015;Jacobs et al, 2016;Vaughan-Evans et al, 2016;König and Pfister, 2017;Menninghaus et al, 2017;Egan et al, 2020;Menninghaus and Wallot, 2021). Relevant studies of prose have mostly used summary statistics of properties extracted from text.…”

Aesthetic appraisals of literary style and emotional intensity in narrative engagement are neurally dissociable

“…The slowing down of reading upon encountering foregrounded language further predicted increased appreciation of the literary works, confirming Mukařovský’s theory that the disruption of rapid default processing and increased awareness of stylistic features contributes to aesthetic appreciation 15 . Neuroimaging evidence suggested that foregrounding devices such as alliteration modulate attention and semantic integration 29 . Evidence from neuroimaging research also showed that certain types of literary language (metaphors, idioms, and irony/sarcasm) increase activation in the parietal attention network 30 , presumably by increasing processing demands.…”