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• Inference is the process of arriving at a hypothesis,

  idea, or judgement on the basis of other knowledge, ideas, or judgements

  inferencing (that is, making inferences or inferring).
• Interlocutor is a neutral term referring to any person with whom someone is speaking.
• Bottom-up processing is an active process drawing on information contained in the message
• top-down processing is an active process drawing on information contained in background knowledge, information

  from the context and from the listener’s and speaker’s purposes or intentions
• Schema theory is the theory that in comprehending language people activate relevant schemata allowing them to process and interpret new experiences quickly and efficiently.
• Tentative: not certain or fixed; provisional.