Dialogue

Question 1

Dialogue - Three components

Answer 1

1. Evidence that we align to who we’re talking to
   - express ourselves in a similar way
2. 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
3. Interactive-alignment model

Question 2

How do we study dialogue?

Answer 2

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

Question 3

Evidence on how we align to the person we’re speaking to

Answer 3

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

Question 4

Research into SPEECH ACCOMMODATION THEORY

Answer 4

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

Question 5

Extent we use speech accommodation depends on

Answer 5

who we are interacting with - we match gestures more if we like the person

Question 6

“Response matching” Argyle (1969)

Answer 6

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

Question 7

How does this speech accommodation/response matching happen?

Answer 7

Conceptualisation
Word repetition
Structure repetition

Question 8

Conceptualisation

Answer 8

The way we represent situation we are in (at a high-order level)

Question 9

Garrod & Anderson (1987)

Answer 9

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

Question 10

Garrod & Anderson (1987) conceptualisation example

Answer 10

Participants tended to converge to one of 4 description schemas

1. Path type
2. Co-ordinate description type (MATRIX GRID)
3. Line type description (top line, 4th box along)
4. Figural description - pictorial/images

Question 11

Results of G&A (1987)

Answer 11

Ppts would converge/adapt to similar forms of description over course of dialogue and DIDN’T appear to explicitly negotiate this

Question 12

Principle of output/input co-ordination (G&A propose this)

Answer 12

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)

Question 13

Garrod & Doherty (94) tested effects of relationship between speakers

Answer 13

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)

2. Speakers changed regularly NOT from same group of people - random
3. Same partner for every game

In community condition - massive CONVERGENCE - by game 5, everyone using same description scheme

Question 14

Results of G&D (94) - effects of relationship between speakers

Answer 14

1. convergence to same description scheme
2. never really settling on 1 description scheme
3. real mix - different pairs of speakers converging to different description schemes

Question 15

G&D - what does that tell us about how language works?

Answer 15

DIALECT
Communities converge to pronounce certain words
In a community of people = powerful convergence effect
Causing DIALECT, JARGON

Question 16

Word repetition in dialogue (Brennan & Clark, 1996)

Answer 16

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

Question 17

Lexical entrainment (Word repetition) - Brennan & Clark (1996)

Answer 17

Repeated use of same or related terms to refer to an object
Established jointly between ppts
become MORE ECONOMICAL with PHRASES - use less variety

Question 18

Two exceptions to lexical entrainment

Answer 18

Court and politics

Where people may refuse to use same terminology

Question 19

One article

Answer 19

Overhearers don’t seem to have same understanding as people who are part of it

Question 20

Structure repetition (same as in L10)

Answer 20

You get repetition at every level of conversation

Question 21

Branigan, Pickering & Cleland (2000) - sentence structure

Answer 21

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

Question 22

Audience design - how far do speakers take partners into account?
Do we change how we’re talking based on our knowledge of the audience?

Answer 22

Isaacs & Clark (1987)

Question 23

Isaacs & Clark (1987)

Answer 23

In NYC - ppts (native New Yorkers) had to describe pictures to other NYers or “out of towners”
about NYC land marks
Ppts weren’t told which was which but quickly established which category they were in and MODIFIED DESCRIPTIONS OF LANDMARK PHOTOS accordingly

Adjusted how they spoke, taking into account the knowledge of the person they are talking to and adjusting the way they spoke to them

Obvious manipulation

Question 24

Ferreira et al (2005)

Answer 24

Subtle manipulation
Distinction between linguistic and non-linguistic ambiguity
Do we avoid ambiguity when we’re speaking to someone?

Question 25

Ferreira et al (2005) - avoiding ambiguity

Answer 25

Subtle manipulation Distinction between linguistic and non-linguistic ambiguity Do we avoid ambiguity when we're speaking to someone? Picture description task a) had big bat, little bat, duck - NON-linguistic ambuiguity b) animal bat, cricket bat, duck - LINGUISTIC ambiguity - two types of bats c) control trial - only 1 animal bat present

Question 26

Ferreira et al (2005) results - avoiding ambiguity

Answer 26

Target was always to describe the (animal/small) bat Participants were better at avoiding non-linguistic than linguistic More likely to specify little bat than describing animal/flying bat Not very good at avoiding linguistic ambiguity - didn't realise it was ambiguous Once their partner said "but which bat" - ppts noticed and avoided ambiguity

Question 27

Limits to audience design (Ferreira & Dell, 2000)

Answer 27

The coach knew [that] you missed practice The vampire knew [that] you hated blood Inclusion of "that" makes sentence easier to understand - avoids garden path sentence Do speakers take this into account? No - even though including "that" helps avoid ambiguity, speakers don't tend to do this If inclusion of "that" --> stops sentences taking 2 paths: The coach knew you. The coach knew you missed...

Question 28

Keysar & Henley (Ambiguous sentencing) - when we don't help our audience

Answer 28

Got people to produce sentences that were ambiguous Two types of ambiguity 1. Syntactically ambiguous: Boris shot the man with the gun (listener could understand the sentence differently to what you mean) 2. Lexically ambiguous: Currency is no longer exchanged at the banks (banks could refer to financial banks or river banks) So do speakers have a good sense of whether the listener understood or not? 46% listeners did NOT have a good insight

Question 29

Another study (2013) looked at whether our ability to avoid ambiguity when talking to someone is dependent on our emotional state

Answer 29

Role of "just being human" Induced mood before task Record speech that would be played back to others Have to describe where to move objects based on instructions in a picture - a couple of instructions could be given ambiguously - "move donkey above the cat" - two cats in image - which cat? thus ambiguous - the ambiguous instructions require more description

Question 30

Happy vs sad speakers - vary in ambiguity?

Answer 30

Happy speakers were less likely to modify object description - Less good at task - Happy, carefree? hinders communication - Produces more ambiguous appearances - More mistakes

Question 31

Why are happy people more likely to be ambiguous?

Answer 31

Happy mood - watch bambi skating scene Sad move - watch Mufasa death scene in Lion King Possible explanation to why when happy, more ambiguous - worry less about if someone's going to understand you or not Paper is agnostic - don't give explanation why Interesting result

Question 32

Audience design conclusion

Answer 32

Sometimes we avoid audience design | Sometimes we don't

Question 33

Limits to audience design

Answer 33

Harley book

Question 34

Interactive-Alignment model (Pickering & Garrod, 2004)

Answer 34

Mechanistic theory of dialogue - produce a model of how dialogue works - what are people doing when talking to someone else

Question 35

Situational model

Answer 35

shared understanding of what their conversation is about The repetition found multiple levels of speech is what drives this model

Question 36

Repetition of what in interactive alignment model?

Answer 36

``` Conceptualisation (semantics) Syntactic repetition (reuse syntax of your partner) Phonological level (put on accent of partner) ``` Automatic, unconscious process - LINGUISTIC PRIMING - not aware that we do it They argue that it's really important as if you start to express yourself in the same way at different levels - helps you to build up a model of conversation between you that is SIMILAR at all different levels

Question 37

Similar model of conversation facilitates

Answer 37

Good communication which relies on same understanding as your conversational partner

Question 38

Evaluation of this IA model

Answer 38

Easily explains extent of repetition in dialogue and the fact this appears at 3 distinct levels (meaning, word, structure) BUT assumes little explicit reasoning about person we speak to (AUDIENCE DESIGN) is it complex enough? Doesn't say anything about how we reason about someone's knowledge and adjust accordingly or modify how we talk depending on who we talk to Good model of repetition in dialogue Building blocks to speech

Question 39

Pickering paper - what is dialogue?

Answer 39

A joint activity, where two people work together on a common task of producing conversation. They rapidly switch between comprehending and producing language They do it with remarkable ease given the apparent ease - given difficulty of knowing how and when to respond Psycholinguists may say dialogue is too hard to study - impossible to use experimental control How can we do anything comparable in dialogue - speaker's utterances depends on the interlocutor's behaviour?

Question 40

What makes dialogue successful?

Answer 40

Success occurs when interlocutors come to have the same understanding of the relevant aspect of the world Align their mental states Refer to the same entities and represent the same information about those entities Assume people construct a situation model that represents salient aspects of the situation under discussions

Question 41

Dialogue is extremely repetitive says Pickering

Answer 41

which is the principle cause of alignment of situation models repeat sounds, words, grammar and abstract aspects of meaning People use the same representations when producing and comprehending language hear an utterance --> activate acoustic representations --> lexical representations --> retain activations --> more likely to be used --> imitation Dialogue involves LINGUISTIC PRIMING - such imitation routinely takes place without the person being aware of it (automatic process) Mechanism of alignment is largely automatic and unconscious

Question 42

Garrod & Anderson (1987) maze game

Answer 42

Players in a mazer game tend to use the same terms to refer to their positions in a maze (e.g. row/level) and to use same description schemes - co-ordinates/line&row (paths)/matrix grid/pictorial descriptions

Question 43

Alignment of grammar

Answer 43

People tend to repeat their own grammatical choices - therefore show syntactic priming Could such priming occur between people in dialogue? - would indicate that comprehension and production share grammatical representations

Question 44

Testing grammatical representation - Branigan et al (2000)

Answer 44

description card task - participants tended to repeat the confederate's choice of grammatical form (sentence structure - DO/PO) Even when debriefing - ppts hadn't guessed what they were testing for TENDENCY TO REPEAT LINGUISTIC FORM UNDERLIES ALIGNMENT OF DIALOGUE Also manipulated whether prime and target used the same verb as each other (give-give) or used different verbs (show-give) When used same verb, ppts were 55% more likely to use the same grammatical form as their confederate than use opposite form when used different verb, same grammatical form dropped to 26%

Question 45

Principle of interactive alignment model

Answer 45

Alignment at one level (in this case lexical alignment) ENHANCES alignment at other levels (grammatical alignment)

Question 46

Interlocutors choice of sentence form can be affected by factors unrelated to alignment

Answer 46

Tendency to avoid ambiguity (by adding that's) - small in comparison to a much stronger tendency to utter "that's" if the addressee had just uttered "that's" The tendency to align can overwhelm other factors affecting language production

Question 47

Grammatical alignment takes place between languages in bilinguals (Spanish & English)

Answer 47

confederate produce Spanish active or passive utterance, and the participant respond in English - ppt tended to use the same grammatical form as the confederate even though language differed

Question 48

Conclusion of Pickering paper

Answer 48

- Interlocutors align grammatical representations, as well as words and meanings - Suggests interlocutors have a very strong tendency to align their language, typically without being at all aware they are doing so - Long way from natural, interactive language (lab tasks) - BUT they do investigate language as a communicative device .

Question 49

Conclusion of Pickering paper

Answer 49

- Interlocutors align grammatical representations, as well as words and meanings - Suggests interlocutors have a very strong tendency to align their language, typically without being at all aware they are doing so - Long way from natural, interactive language (lab tasks) - BUT they do investigate language as a communicative device

Question 50

Speakers do pay some attention to the needs of the listener (Audience design)

Answer 50

By trying to disambiguate their utterances better at doing it with non-linguistic ambiguity Sometimes don't notice linguistic ambiguity to avoid it

Question 51

Non-linguistic ambiguity

Answer 51

Multiple instances of similar meanings e.g. two apples in front of us, one red and one green - we are unlikely to just say "give me the apple" BUT only sometimes avoid linguistic ambiguity (ambiguous words e.g. bat)

Question 52

Ferreira et al (2005) bat study showed

Answer 52

Speakers monitor their speech and sometimes detect and avoid linguistic ambiguity before producing it but almost always avoid non-linguistic ambiguity

Question 53

Limitations to audience design - Limits to how far a speaker will go to make the listener's life easier - Ferreira & Dell (2000) examined extent to which ppts used optional complentizers e.g. that (the vampire knew [that] you hated blood

Answer 53

SHOULD use this optional word of "that" to make sure sentence is easy to understand and as unambiguous as possible but choose structures that are easy to produce

Question 54

Keysar and Henly (2002)

Answer 54

looked at 40 speakers producing syntactically ambiguous sentences such as "boris shot the man with the gun" and lexically ambiguous sentences such as "the typist tried to read the letter without her glasses" - nearly half (46%) of the time the speaker thought the listeners had correctly understood the sentence when they hadn't - limits to how much speakers tailor their performance to their listeners, they also do not always do so correctly even when they try