On the processing of Free Indirect Discourse

In this contribution we report on the results from two psycholinguistic experiments investigating the processing of Free Indirect Discourse (FID). We conceive of FID as a linguistic means that cues comprehenders to take over the perspective of a protagonist in third-person narrations. Using both on-line and off-line measures, we tested the hypothesis that the referent of the protagonist receives a higher activation status during reading if his or her thoughts are related through FID. The FID cues we used were questions and discourse particles. In addition, we compared different inferential statistic procedures in the analysis of the results. Although the cues that were employed as FID markers in the experimental materials had an influence on the perception of narrative perspective, no indication was found for the hypothesis that narrative perspective mediated through FID influences the salience of the protagonist during reading. We discuss the implications of this null result and point to some more general methodological problems arising in the investigation of processing of literary text.