PSY 369: Psycholinguistics

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PSY 369 Psycholinguistics

• Conversation
• Production and Comprehension as a communicative
  dance

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Conversational interaction
the horse raced past the barn
the kids swam across the river
Conversation is more than just two side-by-side
monologues.
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Conversational interaction
The horse raced past the barn
Really? Why would it do that?
Conversation is a specialized form of social
interaction, with rules and organization.
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Conversation

• Herb Clark (1996)
• Joint action
• People acting in coordination with one another
• doing the tango
• driving a car with a pedestrian crossing the
  street
• The participants dont always do similar things
• Autonomous actions
• Things that you do by yourself
• Participatory actions
• Individual acts only done as parts of joint
  actions

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Conversation

• Herb Clark (1996)

• Speaking and listening
• Traditionally treated as autonomous actions
• Contributing to the tradition of studying
  language comprehension and production separately
• Clark proposed that they should be treated as
  participatory actions

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Conversation

• Herb Clark (1996)

• Speaking and listening
• Component actions in production and comprehension
  come in pairs

Speaking
Listening

• A vocalizes sounds for B

• B attends to As vocalizations

• A formalizes utterances for B

• B identifies As utterances

• A means something for B

• B understands As meaning

• The actions of one participant depend on the
  actions of the other

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Conversation

• Herb Clark (1996)

• Face-to-face conversation - the basic setting
• Features

Immediacy
Medium
Control

• Co-presence
• Visibility
• Audibility
• Instantaneity

• Evanescence
• Recordlessness
• Simultaneity

• Extemporaneity
• Self-determination
• Self-expression

• Other settings may lack some of these features
• e.g., telephone conversations take away
  co-presence and visibility, which may change
  language use

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Meaning and understanding

• ABBOTT Super Duper computer store. Can I help
  you?
• COSTELLO Thanks. I'm setting up an office in my
  den, and I'm thinking about buying a computer.
• ABBOTT Mac?
• COSTELLO No, the name is Lou.
• ABBOTT Your computer?
• COSTELLO I don't own a computer. I want to buy
  one.
• ABBOTT Mac?
• COSTELLO I told you, my name is Lou.
• ABBOTT What about Windows?
• COSTELLO Why? Will it get stuffy in here?
• ABBOTT Do you want a computer with windows?
• COSTELLO I don't know. What will I see when I
  look in the windows?
• ABBOTT Wallpaper.
• COSTELLO Never mind the windows. I need a
  computer and software.
• ABBOTT Software for windows?
• COSTELLO No. On the computer! I need something I
  can use to write proposals, track expenses and
  run my business. What have you got?
• ABBOTT Office.

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Meaning and understanding

• COSTELLO Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend
  anything?
• ABBOTT I just did.
• COSTELLO You just did what?
• ABBOTT Recommend something.
• COSTELLO You recommended something?
• ABBOTT Yes.
• COSTELLO For my office?
• ABBOTT Yes.
• COSTELLO OK, what did you recommend for my
  office?
• ABBOTT Office.
• COSTELLO Yes, for my office!
• ABBOTT I recommend office with windows.
• COSTELLO I already have an office and it has
  windows!OK, lets just say, I'm sitting at my
  computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I
  need?
• ABBOTT Word.
• COSTELLO What word?
• ABBOTT Word in Office.
• COSTELLO The only word in office is office.
• ABBOTT The Word in Office for Windows.

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Meaning and understanding

• COSTELLO Which word in office for windows?
• ABBOTT The Word you get when you click the blue
  "W.
• COSTELLO I'm going to click your blue "w" if you
  don't start with some straight answers. OK,
  forget that. Can I watch movies on the Internet?
• ABBOTT Yes, you want Real One.
• COSTELLO Maybe a real one, maybe a cartoon.
  What I watch is none of your business. Just tell
  me what I need!
• ABBOTT Real One.
• COSTELLO If it?s a long movie I also want to see
  reel 2, 3 and 4. Can I watch them?
• ABBOTT Of course.
• COSTELLO Great, with what?
• ABBOTT Real One.
• COSTELLO OK, I'm at my computer and I want to
  watch a movie.What do I do?
• ABBOTT You click the blue "1.
• COSTELLO I click the blue one what?
• ABBOTT The blue "1.
• COSTELLO Is that different from the blue "W"?
• ABBOTT The blue 1 is Real One and the blue W is
  Word.
• COSTELLO What word?

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Meaning and understanding

• ABBOTT The Word in Office for Windows.
• COSTELLO But there are three words in "office
  for windows"!
• ABBOTT No, just one. But it?s the most popular
  Word in the world.
• COSTELLO It is?
• ABBOTT Yes, but to be fair, there aren't many
  other Words left. It pretty much wiped out all
  the other Words.
• COSTELLO And that word is real one?
• ABBOTT Real One has nothing to do with Word.
  Real One isn't even Part of Office.
• COSTELLO Stop! Don't start that again. What
  about financial bookkeeping you have anything I
  can track my money with?
• ABBOTT Money.
• COSTELLO That's right. What do you have?
• ABBOTT Money.
• COSTELLO I need money to track my money?
• ABBOTT It comes bundled with your computer.
• COSTELLO What's bundled to my computer?
• ABBOTT Money.

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Meaning and understanding

• COSTELLO Money comes with my computer?
• ABBOTT Yes. No extra charge.
• COSTELLO I get a bundle of money with my
  computer? How much?
• ABBOTT One copy.
• COSTELLO Isn't it illegal to copy money?
• ABBOTT Microsoft gave us a license to copy
  money.
• COSTELLO They can give you a license to copy
  money?
• ABBOTT Why not? THEY OWN IT!
• (LATER)
• COSTELLO How do I turn my computer off??
• ABBOTT Click on "START".

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Meaning and understanding

• Common ground
• Knowledge, beliefs and suppositions that the
  participants believe that they share
• Members of cultural communities
• Shared experiences
• What has taken place already in the conversation
• Common ground is necessary to coordinate
  speakers meaning with listeners understanding

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Structure of a conversation

• Conversations are purposive and unplanned
• Typically you cant plan exactly what youre
  going to say because it depends on another
  participant
• Conversations look planned only in retrospect
• Conversations have a fairly stable structure

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Structure of a conversation

• Joe (places a phone call)
• Kevin Miss Pinks office - hello
• Joe hello, is Miss Pink in
• Kevin well, shes in, but shes engaged at the
  moment, who is it?
• Joe Oh its Professors Worths secretary, from
  Pan-American college
• Kevin m,
• Joe Could you give her a message for me
• Kevin certainly
• Joe um Professor Worth said that, if Miss Pink
  runs into difficulties, .. On Monday afternoon,
  .. With the standing subcommittee, .. Over the
  item on Miss Panoff,

• Kevin Miss Panoff?
• Joe Yes, that Professor Worth would be with Mr
  Miles all afternoon, .. So she only had to go
  round and collect him if she needed him,
• Kevin ah, thank you very much indeed,
• Joe right
• Kevin Panoff, right you are
• Joe right
• Kevin Ill tell her,
• Joe thank you
• Kevin bye bye
• Joe bye

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Structure of a conversation

• Action sequences smaller joint projects to
  fulfill a goal
• Adjacency pairs
• Opening the conversation
• Kevin Miss Pinks office - hello
• Joe hello, ..
• Exchanging information about Pink
• Joe.., is Miss Pink in
• Kevin well, shes in, but shes engaged at the
  moment

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Structure of a conversation

• Action sequences smaller joint projects to
  fulfill a goal
• Adjacency pairs

• Exchanging the message from Worth
• Joe um Professor Worth said that, if Miss Pink
  runs into difficulties, .. On Monday afternoon,
  .. With the standing subcommittee, .. Over the
  item on Miss Panoff,
• Closing the conversation
• Kevin Ill tell her,
• Joe thank you
• Kevin bye bye
• Joe bye

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Opening conversations

• Need to pick who starts
• Turn taking is typically not decided upon in
  advance
• Potentially a lot of ways to open, but we
  typically restrict our openings to a few ways
• Address another
• Request information
• Offer information
• Use a stereotyped expression or topic

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Opening conversations

• Has to resolve
• The entry time
• Is now the time to converse?
• The participants
• Who is talking to whom?
• Their roles
• What is level of participation in the
  conversation?
• The official business
• What is the conversation about?

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Identifying participants

• Conversation often takes place in situations that
  involve various types of participants and
  non-participants

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Taking turns

• Typically conversations dont involve two (or
  more) people talking at the same time

• Individual styles of turn-taking vary widely
• Length of a turn is a fairly stable
  characteristic within a given individuals
  conversational interactions
• Standard signals indicate a change in turn a
  head nod, a glance, a questioning tone

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Taking turns

• Typically conversations dont involve two (or
  more) people talking at the same time
• Three implicit rules (Sacks et al, 1974)
• Rule 1 Current speakers selects next speaker
• Rule 2 Self-selection if rule 1 isnt used,
  then next speaker can select themselves
• Rule 3 current speaker may continue (or not)

• These principles are ordered in terms of priority
• The first is the most important, and the last is
  the least important
• Just try violating them in an actual conversation
  (but debrief later!)

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Taking turns

• Typically conversations dont involve two (or
  more) people talking at the same time

• Use of non-verbal cues
• Drop of pitch
• Drawl on final syllable
• Termination of hand signals
• Drop in loudness
• Completion of a grammatical clause
• Use of stereotyped phrase
• you know

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Negotiating topics

• Keep the discourse relevant to the topic
  (remember Grices maxims)
• Coherence again
• Earlier we looked at coherence within a speaker,
  now we consider it across multiple speakers
• Must use statements to signal topic shifts

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Closing conversations

• Closing statements
• Must exit from the last topic, mutually agree to
  close the conversation, and coordinate the
  disengagement
• signal the end of conversation (or topic)
• okay
• Justifying why conversation should end
• I gotta go
• Reference to potential future conversation
• later dude

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Summary

• People use language for doing things with each
  other, and their use of language is itself a
  joint action. Clark (1996, pg387)
• Conversation is structured
• But, that structure depends on more than one
  individual
• Models of language use (production and
  comprehension) need to be developed within this
  perspective