ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how phrases, sentences and entire stories are processed and understood during reading and listening. Pragmatics is concerned with practical language use and comprehension. The chapter starts by considering comprehension at the sentence level and focuses on comprehension processes with larger language units. There are two main levels of analysis in sentence comprehension. First, there is an analysis of the syntactical structure of each sentence and second, there is an analysis of sentence meaning. The chapter focuses on the inferences readers and listeners draw during comprehension. It focuses on parsing and the processes readers and listeners use to comprehend the sentences they read or hear. There are more models of parsing than someone can shake a stick at. Many models can be divided into two categories: two-stage, serial processing theories; and one-stage, parallel processing models. Individuals high in working memory capacity outperform low-capacity individuals with respect to several aspects of language comprehension.
