The semantic structure of texts can be described both at the local microlevel and at a more global macrolevel. A model for text comprehension based on this notion accounts for the formation of a coherent semantic text base in terms of a cyclical process constrained by limitations of working memory. Furthermore, the model includes macro-operators, whose purpose is to reduce the information in a text base to its gist, that is, the theoretical macrostructure. These operations are under the control of a schema, which is a theoretical formulation of the comprehender's goals. The macroprocesses are predictable only when the control schema can be made explicit. On the production side, the model is concerned with the generation of recall and summarization protocols. This process is partly reproductive and partly constructive, involving the inverse operation of the macro-operators. The model is applied to a paragraph from a psychological research report, and methods for the empirical testing of the model are developed.The main goal of this article is to describe the system of mental operations that underlie the processes occurring in text comprehension and in the production of recall and summarization protocols. A processing model will be outlined that specifies three sets of operations. First, the meaning elements of a text become This research was supported by Grant MH1S872 from the National Institute of Mental Health to the first author and by grants from the Netherlands Organization for the Advancement of Pure Research and the Faculty of Letters of the University of Amsterdam to the second author.We have benefited from many discussions with members of our laboratories both at Amsterdam and Colorado and especially with Ely Kozminsky, who also performed the statistical analyses reported here.Requests for reprints should be sent to Walter Kintsch, Department of Psychology, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309.organized into a coherent whole, a process that results in multiple processing of some elements and, hence, in differential retention. A second set of operations condenses the full meaning of the text into its gist. These processes are complemented by a third set of operations that generate new texts from the memorial consequences of the comprehension processes.These goals involve a number of more concrete objectives. We want first to be able to go through a text, sentence by sentence, specifying the processes that these sentences undergo in comprehension as well as the outputs of these processes at various stages of comprehension. Next, we propose to analyze recall protocols and summaries in the same way and to specify for each sentence the operations required to produce such a sentence. The
ABSTRACT. This paper discusses some principles of critical discourse analysis, such as the explicit sociopolitical stance of discourse analysts, and a focus on dominance relations by elite groups and institutions as they are being enacted, legitimated or otherwise reproduced by text and talk. One of the crucial elements of this analysis of the relations between power and discourse is the patterns of access to (public) discourse for different social groups. Theoretically it is shown that in order to be able to relate power and discourse in an explicit way, we need the cognitive interface of models. knowledge, attitudes and ideologies and other social representations of the social mind, which also relate the individual and the social, and the micro-and the macro-levels of social structure. Finally, the argument is illustrated with an analysis of parliamentary debates about ethnic affairs.
ABSTRACT. Within the broader framework of a research programme on the reproduction of racism in discourse and communication, the present article examines the prominent role of the denial of racism, especially among the elites, in much contemporary text and talk about ethnic relations. After a conceptual analysis of denial strategies in interpersonal impression formation on the one hand, and within the social-political context of minority and immigration management on the other, various types of denial are examined in everyday conversations, press reports and parliamentary debates. Among these forms of denial are disclaimers, mitigation, euphemism, excuses, blaming the victim, reversal and other moves of defence, face-keeping and positive self-presentation in negative discourse about minorities, immigrants and (other) anti-racists.
Contrary to most traditional approaches, ideologies are defined here within a multidisciplinary framework that combines a social, cognitive and discursive component. As 'systems of ideas', ideologies are sociocognitively defined as shared representations of social groups, and more specifically as the 'axiomatic' principles of such representations. As the basis of a social group's selfimage, ideologies organize its identity, actions, aims, norms and values, and resources as well as its relations to other social groups. Ideologies are distinct from the sociocognitive basis of broader cultural communities, within which different ideological groups share fundamental beliefs such as their cultural knowledge. Ideologies are expressed and generally reproduced in the social practices of their members, and more particularly acquired, confirmed, changed and perpetuated through discourse. Although general properties of language and discourse are not, as such, ideologically marked, systematic discourse analysis offers powerful methods to study the structures and functions of 'underlying' ideologies. The ideological polarization between ingroups and outgroups-a prominent feature of the structure of ideologies-may also be systematically studied at all levels of text and talk, e.g. by analysing how members of ingroups typically emphasize their own good deeds and properties and the bad ones of the outgroup, and mitigate or deny their own bad ones and the good ones of the outgroup.
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