Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Conditional advice and inducements
T2 - are readers sensitive to implicit speech acts during comprehension?
AU - Haigh, Matthew
AU - Stewart, Andrew J
AU - Wood, Jeffrey S
AU - Connell, Louise
PY - 2011/3
Y1 - 2011/3
N2 - Conditionals can implicitly convey a range of speech acts including promises, tips, threats and warnings. These are traditionally divided into the broader categories of advice (tips and warnings) and inducements (promises and threats). One consequence of this distinction is that speech acts from within the same category should be harder to differentiate than those from different categories. We examined this in two self-paced reading experiments. Experiment 1 revealed a rapid processing penalty when inducements (promises) and advice (tips) were anaphorically referenced using a mismatching speech act. In Experiment 2 a delayed penalty was observed when a speech act (promise or threat) was referenced by a mismatching speech act from the same category of inducements. This suggests that speech acts from the same category are harder to discriminate than those from different categories. Our findings not only support a semantic distinction between speech act categories, but also reveal pragmatic differences within categories.
AB - Conditionals can implicitly convey a range of speech acts including promises, tips, threats and warnings. These are traditionally divided into the broader categories of advice (tips and warnings) and inducements (promises and threats). One consequence of this distinction is that speech acts from within the same category should be harder to differentiate than those from different categories. We examined this in two self-paced reading experiments. Experiment 1 revealed a rapid processing penalty when inducements (promises) and advice (tips) were anaphorically referenced using a mismatching speech act. In Experiment 2 a delayed penalty was observed when a speech act (promise or threat) was referenced by a mismatching speech act from the same category of inducements. This suggests that speech acts from the same category are harder to discriminate than those from different categories. Our findings not only support a semantic distinction between speech act categories, but also reveal pragmatic differences within categories.
KW - Conditionals
KW - Comprehension
KW - Promise
KW - Tip
KW - Threat
U2 - 10.1016/j.actpsy.2011.01.009
DO - 10.1016/j.actpsy.2011.01.009
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 21334582
VL - 136
SP - 419
EP - 424
JO - Acta Psychologica
JF - Acta Psychologica
IS - 3
ER -