Dialogue Flashcards
Dialogue - Three components
- Evidence that we align to who we’re talking to
- express ourselves in a similar way - Do we take into account what we know about our partner when we are talking to them? YES - AUDIENCE DESIGN - we formulate our language output
- Evidence either way - Interactive-alignment model
How do we study dialogue?
Not often studied - difficult to control what’s happening in a dialogue
One way - use confederates - makes it artificial/scripted
Really time-consuming
Difficult to measure
- what’s the dependent variable?
– reaction time
– content of speech
Evidence on how we align to the person we’re speaking to
Picks up accent and mannerism - we have a tendency to align with the person we’re talking to - we start expressing ourselves in the same way
Research into SPEECH ACCOMMODATION THEORY
How we speak influences the way people perceive us - idea was that we change the way we speak to make people like us
So our speech partners have a better impression of us
Extent we use speech accommodation depends on
who we are interacting with - we match gestures more if we like the person
“Response matching” Argyle (1969)
We match our conversational partners on a range of different factors e.g. length of utterances, words used
e.g. this effect when you realise you’re both whispering but unsure why/talking really rapidly
How does this speech accommodation/response matching happen?
Conceptualisation
Word repetition
Structure repetition
Conceptualisation
The way we represent situation we are in (at a high-order level)
Garrod & Anderson (1987)
Two participants had to navigate their way through maze on screen - in separate rooms
Same maze layout
There were different gates in the maze - could only get through gate if your partner got to that point on their maze to and switched a switch specific to their maze to let you through - complex
Have to explain to partner where you were in this maze
Garrod & Anderson (1987) conceptualisation example
Participants tended to converge to one of 4 description schemas
- Path type
- Co-ordinate description type (MATRIX GRID)
- Line type description (top line, 4th box along)
- Figural description - pictorial/images
Results of G&A (1987)
Ppts would converge/adapt to similar forms of description over course of dialogue and DIDN’T appear to explicitly negotiate this
Principle of output/input co-ordination (G&A propose this)
You re use the same rules as needed to understand your partner
You formulate your output (your speech) according to same principles of interpretation as those are needed to interpret the most relevant input (your partner’s speech)
Garrod & Doherty (94) tested effects of relationship between speakers
Same maze task
3 conditions
1. Speakers changed partners regularly, but pairs were always drawn from same group of people - A with B, C with D, A with D - all were paired together at some point (Community condition)
- Speakers changed regularly NOT from same group of people - random
- Same partner for every game
In community condition - massive CONVERGENCE - by game 5, everyone using same description scheme
Results of G&D (94) - effects of relationship between speakers
- convergence to same description scheme
- never really settling on 1 description scheme
- real mix - different pairs of speakers converging to different description schemes
G&D - what does that tell us about how language works?
DIALECT
Communities converge to pronounce certain words
In a community of people = powerful convergence effect
Causing DIALECT, JARGON
Word repetition in dialogue (Brennan & Clark, 1996)
Lexical entrainment .
Picture description task e.g. shoe - fish - dog
or harder heels - trainer - smart shoe
This study looked at way people converged on words when asked to describe pictures
Ppts established a CONCEPTUAL PACT - conversation specific - pact about how they were going to refer to one thing a certain way
Lexical entrainment (Word repetition) - Brennan & Clark (1996)
Repeated use of same or related terms to refer to an object
Established jointly between ppts
become MORE ECONOMICAL with PHRASES - use less variety
Two exceptions to lexical entrainment
Court and politics
Where people may refuse to use same terminology
One article
Overhearers don’t seem to have same understanding as people who are part of it
Structure repetition (same as in L10)
You get repetition at every level of conversation
Branigan, Pickering & Cleland (2000) - sentence structure
If confed uses 1 sentence structure, ppt likely to reuse same sentence structure
ROBUST finding that participants do this in dialogue settings
They don’t seem to be aware they are doing it
less clear we use this as a strategy - more an automatic process