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Discourse Factors Influencing Spatial Descriptions in English and German

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Spatial Cognition V Reasoning, Action, Interaction (Spatial Cognition 2006)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 4387))

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Abstract

The ways in which objects are referred to by using spatial language depend on many factors, including the spatial configuration and the discourse context. We present the results of a web experiment in which speakers were asked to either describe where a specified item was located in a picture containing several items, or which item was specified. Furthermore, conditions differed as to whether the first six configurations were specifically simple or specifically complex. Results show that speakers’ spatial descriptions are more detailed if the question is where rather than which, mirroring the fact that contrasting the target item from the others in which tasks may not always require an equally detailed spatial description as in where tasks. Furthermore, speakers are influenced by the complexity of initial configurations in intricate ways: on the one hand, individual speakers tend to self-align with respect to their earlier linguistic strategies; however, also a contrast effect could be identified with respect to the usage of combined projective terms.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universität Bielefeld & Universität Bremen, Germany

    Constanze Vorwerg & Thora Tenbrink

Authors
  1. Constanze Vorwerg
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  2. Thora Tenbrink
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Sciences, University of Bremen, Enrique-Schmidt-Str. 5, 28359, Bremen, Germany

    Thomas Barkowsky

  2. Department of Psychology, Justus-Liebig University Gießen, Otto-Behaghel-Strasse 10F, 35394, Giessen, Germany

    Markus Knauff

  3. LIMSI-CNRS, Université de Paris-Sud, 91403, Orsay, France

    Gérard Ligozat

  4. Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    Daniel R. Montello

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Vorwerg, C., Tenbrink, T. (2007). Discourse Factors Influencing Spatial Descriptions in English and German. In: Barkowsky, T., Knauff, M., Ligozat, G., Montello, D.R. (eds) Spatial Cognition V Reasoning, Action, Interaction. Spatial Cognition 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 4387. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-75666-8_27

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-75666-8_27

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-75665-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-75666-8

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