Inside characters' minds: the role of reports in narrative perspective taking

We engage with stories daily, experiencing situations from the perspectives of different fictional characters. Language allows us to do this with the use of reports, that is, constructions representing what someone said, thought, or felt. This dissertation focuses on reports and their role in story comprehension. Such constructions are, for instance, Direct Discourse ("Aargh, I will never make it!" he thought) and Indirect Discourse (He thought that he would never make it). The central research question is: How do reports influence readers to take a fictional character's perspective in narratives? I particularly investigate Free Indirect Discourse, a kind of report construction that does not explicitly say whose perspective it represents, as in Aargh, he would never make it! Readers may interpret such sentences as the narrator's or a character's thoughts, feelings, or attitudes. I analyze the connection between reports and other story passages, as well as the textual cues aiding readers' understanding of Free Indirect Discourse from a character's viewpoint. Cues include references to a character's perception (e.g., he smelled/saw/tasted), the presence of other characters, and the narrative perspective (whether the story is told from a first-person or a third-person point of view). Additionally, I explore to what extent individual preferences influence the interpretation of different report constructions. Experimental studies conducted in English, Greek, and Dutch employ forced-choice tasks, rating tasks, response times and mouse-tracking. These findings advance research in linguistic and literary analysis, and further contribute to our understanding of narrative comprehension.