Discourse structure is a central research topic in the
'Discourse and
Communication' group. We investigate how monologic or dialogic
discourse is constructed from smaller, utterance-level elements, how
such discourse structures influence utterance meaning, and how they
contribute to the achievement of specific communicative goals in
concrete contexts. This line of research is based on corpus analysis
and psycho- and neurolinguistic experimentation with methods such as
ERP-registration and fMRI. It involves semantic and textual
(e.g. Rhetorical Structure Theory) analysis, as well as the
investigation of language- and genre-specific variations of discourse
structure. In the near future, eye-tracking studies will be used to
investigate the processing of the visual organisation of multimodal
discourse (e.g. magazines, tv-spots). Our insights in the processing
and use of discourse structures contribute to the development of
methods for the evaluation and optimisation of texts.
We invite project proposals within the domain of discourse
structure that pertain to any of the above-mentioned
research questions.
For further information, contact Markus Egg (K.M.M.Egg at rug dot nl).