Projects per year
Abstract
Languages tend not to exhibit unpredictable variation. We ex- plore alignment/accommodation during interaction as a mech- anism to explain this cross-linguistic tendency. Specifically, we test the hypothesis (derived from historical linguistics) that interactions between categorical and variable users are inher- ently asymmetric: while variable users (of e.g. a grammatical marker) can accommodate to their partner by increasing their usage, categorical users should be reluctant to accommodate to variable partners, since this requires them to violate the rules of their grammar. We ran an experiment in which pairs of par- ticipants learnt a miniature language (featuring a potentially variable grammatical marker) and then used it to communi- cate. Our results support the hypothesis: variably-trained par- ticipants accommodate to their categorically-trained partners, who do not change their behaviour during interaction. More generally, interaction results in the elimination of variation: ac- commodation/alignment is a viable mechanism for explaining the absence of unpredictable variation in language.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society |
Place of Publication | Austin, TX |
Publisher | Cognitive Science Society |
Pages | 1461-1466 |
ISBN (Print) | 978-0-9911967-0-8 |
Publication status | Published - 2014 |
Event | CogSci 2014 - Quebec City, Canada Duration: 23 Jul 2014 → 26 Jul 2014 |
Conference
Conference | CogSci 2014 |
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Country/Territory | Canada |
City | Quebec City |
Period | 23/07/14 → 26/07/14 |
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'Eliminating Unpredictable Linguistic Variation through Interaction'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 2 Finished
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The effect of context biases on the cultural evolution of language
Feher, O. & Smith, K.
1/01/13 → 31/12/14
Project: Research
Activities
- 3 Participation in conference
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Interdisciplinary Advances in Statistical Learning
Kenny Smith (Participant)
2015Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in conference
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36th annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society
Kenny Smith (Participant)
2014Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in conference
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AMLaP 2014
Kenny Smith (Participant)
2014Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in conference