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Language processing in natural discourse: exploring the interplay between language production and comprehension of grammatical functions in short story contexts
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Description: This project investigates spoken language production and comprehension of transitive sentences in Swedish, focusing on how the processing of grammatical functions of subject and direct object is influenced by whether sentences occur in short story discourse contexts. The project consists of three experimental studies that investigate the processing of subject-initial and object-initial sentences when they occur in short stories. Study 1 investigates how speakers express transitive events, and whether they more frequently use structurally ambiguous sentences when the discourse context may facilitate comprehension. Study 2 investigates whether the discourse context do facilitate comprehension in these cases by measuring processing costs during comprehension of structurally ambiguous sentences, as based on the listener’s brain activity. Using eye-tracking, study 3 investigates whether listeners can predict grammatical functions of structurally ambiguous sentences when the sentences occur in facilitating discourse contexts. The project will provide novel insights into the relationship between sentence level- and discourse level- language processing, and the relationship between language production and comprehension.