ABSTRACT

This study extends the logic of prior studies showing phonetic convergence between interlocutors to the structural domain. We ask whether listeners’ adaptation of the syntactic forms they produce depends on their perceptions about their interlocutor's social proximity and linguistic competence, using structural priming as a measure of convergence. Two experiments compared structural priming in dialogues between native British English speakers and (i) other native British English speakers, (ii) native speakers of North American English, and (iii) non-native speakers of English, to assess to what extent interlocutor characteristics influence structural convergence in dialogue. Our findings suggest that rates of structural convergence depend both on a speaker's pre-existing structural biases for particular verbs, and their perception of (linguistic or social) similarity to their interlocutor. This suggests that low-level mechanisms underlying structural convergence may be mediated by beliefs about how interlocutors are socially situated with respect to each other.

摘要

这项研究扩展了先前研究的逻辑，显示对话者之间的语音收敛到结构域。我们询问听众对他们产生的句法形式的适应是否取决于他们对对话者的社会接近度和语言能力的看法，使用结构启动作为收敛的衡量标准。两个实验比较了以英国英语为母语的人和 (i) 其他以英国英语为母语的人、(ii) 以北美英语为母语的人和 (iii) 非以英语为母语的人之间对话中的结构启动，以评估对话者特征的程度影响对话中的结构趋同。我们的研究结果表明，结构收敛的速度取决于说话者对特定动词预先存在的结构偏见，以及他们对对话者（语言或社会）相似性的看法。这表明结构趋同背后的低层次机制可能是由关于对话者如何相对于彼此的社会定位的信念所介导的。