Comprehending Causal Relations in Persian Discourse: The Role of Iconicity and Textual Cohesion

Articles in Press

Document Type : مقالات علمی پژوهشی

Authors
R. Golshaie
F. S. Hosseini
Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Literature, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
This article explores the effect of iconicity and textual cohesion on processing causal relations in Persian discourse using an experimental method. A reading-time task with a within-subject design was set up. Twelve 3-sentence experimental scenarios and 12 filler scenarios were constructed. Iconicity and cohesion were the independent variables and participants’ reaction time (RT) was the dependent variable. The cohesion variable manipulated the degree of cohesion between the first and second sentences of scenarios. The iconicity variable manipulated the order of the second and third (cause and effect) sentences of scenarios. Forty-eight participants read the scenarios and verified if the target sentence, which asserted the implicit causal relation between the second and third sentences of scenarios, was correct. The RTs of the participants were collected using DMDX program. The data were then submitted to a mixed-model analysis in R. The main effect of iconicity and cohesion on participants’ RTs was found. There was no interaction effect between iconicity and cohesion. The target sentence had the shortest RT in the condition with iconic and high-cohesion scenarios. Also, the target sentence in the condition with iconic but low-cohesion scenarios was processed as fast as the target sentence in the condition with non-iconic but high-cohesion scenarios. The findings confirm the facilitatory effect of iconicity on understanding causal sequences. The results also show that if, for discourse reasons, information is provided non-iconically, the existence of highly cohesive relations between the causal sequences and the previous context can compensate the non-facilitatory effect of non-iconic sequences.

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Language Related Research

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 13 July 2025