"A good Arab is not a dead Arab - A racist incitement": On the accessibility of negated concepts

Rachel Giora*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

According to the teachings of negation in psycholinguistics, concepts within the scope of negation are eradicated from the mental representation and replaced by available antonyms. Thus, given enough processing time, He is not alive is represented as He is dead. However, a systematic look at natural language use suggests that this is not always the case. Instead, concepts within the scope of negation often remain accessible to addressees so that they can refer to them later on in the discourse ("Not alive but evolving", 1 "It's not alive but it was [alive]", 2 "Not dead but dying" 3 ). That concepts within the scope of negation are not suppressed unconditionally is established here by both offline and online experimental data showing that, when relevant either to early or to late context, concepts within the scope of negation are not discarded. Instead they remain active in the minds of speakers and listeners who integrate them into their discourse representation.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationExplorations in Pragmatics
Subtitle of host publicationLinguistic, Cognitive and Intercultural Aspects
PublisherDe Gruyter Mouton
Pages129-162
Number of pages34
ISBN (Electronic)9783110198843
ISBN (Print)9783110193664
StatePublished - 25 Sep 2008

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