Aim Low

Mechanisms of Audience Design in Multiparty Conversation

Datos Bibliográficos

ID11272849
AutoresSi On Yoon (0000-0001-6715-4598, Department of Psychology University of Illinois, autor de correspondencia), Sarah Brown-Schmidt (Department of Psychology University of Illinois), Sarah Brown‐Schmidt (0000-0002-5647-0875, University of Illinois System)
Año2018
Volumen55
Número7
Páginas566-592
Fecha de publicación2018-10-03
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaDiscourse Processes (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0163-853X • E-ISSN: 1532-6950
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0163853x.2017.1286225
OpenAlexW2594743051
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas8
Referencias citadas58

It is well established in studies of two-party conversation that conversational partners jointly establish brief labels for repeatedly mentioned entities. When speaking to a new partner who is unfamiliar with the labels, speakers use longer expressions to facilitate understanding. How this process of audience design scales up to multiparty conversation, where individuals differ in mutual knowledge, is unknown. Here we propose, and test, three potential hypotheses regarding how speakers design referring expressions in three-party conversation. Participants completed a referential communication task in groups of three in which one participant, the Director, gave instructions to two Matchers who differed in their knowledge of referential labels. Directors flexibly alternated between partner-specific representations of common ground (CG), producing longer descriptions for low-CG than for high-CG partners. When addressing multiple parties at once, speakers tailored descriptions for the least knowledgeable person. These findings shed light on the mechanisms that support audience design in multiparty conversation: Audience design begins with access to distinct representations of common ground held with the intended addressee or addressees. These distinct representations support an audience design process in which utterances are tailored to accommodate the least knowledgeable addressee in a group

Common ground · Conversation · Conversation analysis · Human–computer interaction · Linguistics · Process (computing · Task (project management · Test (biology · Communication · Computer Science · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Psychology · Speech and dialogue systems