Publications

Displaying 1 - 73 of 73
  • Bauer, B. L. M. (2021). Formation of numerals in the romance languages. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.685.

    Abstract

    The Romance languages have a rich numeral system that includes cardinals—providing the bases on which the other types of numeral series are built—ordinals, fractions, collectives, approximatives, distributives, and multiplicatives. Latin plays a decisive and continued role in their formation, both as the language to which many numerals go back directly and as an ongoing source for lexemes and formatives. While the Latin numeral system was synthetic, with a distinct ending for each type of numeral, the Romance numerals often feature more than one (unevenly distributed) marker or structure per series, which feature varying degrees of inherited, borrowed, or innovative elements. Formal consistency is strongest in cardinals, followed by ordinals and then the other types of numeral, which also tend to be more analytic or periphrastic. From a morphological perspective, Romance numerals overall have moved away from the inherited syntheticity, but several series continue to be synthetic formations—at least in part—with morphological markers drawn from Latin that may have undergone functional change (e.g. distributive > ordinal > collective). The underlying syntax of Romance numerals is in line with the overall grammatical patterns of Romance languages, as reflected in the prevalence of word order (with arithmetical correlates), connectors, (partial) loss of agreement, and analyticity. Innovation is prominent in the formation of higher numerals with bases beyond ‘thousand’, of teens and decads in Romanian, and of vigesimals in numerous Romance varieties.
  • Bauer, B. L. M. (1997). Nominal syntax in Italic: A diachronic perspective. In Language change and functional explanations (pp. 273-301). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Becker, A., & Klein, W. (1984). Notes on the internal organization of a learner variety. In P. Auer, & A. Di Luzio (Eds.), Interpretive sociolinguistics (pp. 215-231). Tübingen: Narr.
  • Bosker, H. R. (2021). The contribution of amplitude modulations in speech to perceived charisma. In B. Weiss, J. Trouvain, M. Barkat-Defradas, & J. J. Ohala (Eds.), Voice attractiveness: Prosody, phonology and phonetics (pp. 165-181). Singapore: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-981-15-6627-1_10.

    Abstract

    Speech contains pronounced amplitude modulations in the 1–9 Hz range, correlating with the syllabic rate of speech. Recent models of speech perception propose that this rhythmic nature of speech is central to speech recognition and has beneficial effects on language processing. Here, we investigated the contribution of amplitude modulations to the subjective impression listeners have of public speakers. The speech from US presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the three TV debates of 2016 was acoustically analyzed by means of modulation spectra. These indicated that Clinton’s speech had more pronounced amplitude modulations than Trump’s speech, particularly in the 1–9 Hz range. A subsequent perception experiment, with listeners rating the perceived charisma of (low-pass filtered versions of) Clinton’s and Trump’s speech, showed that more pronounced amplitude modulations (i.e., more ‘rhythmic’ speech) increased perceived charisma ratings. These outcomes highlight the important contribution of speech rhythm to charisma perception.
  • Böttner, M. (1997). Natural Language. In C. Brink, W. Kahl, & G. Schmidt (Eds.), Relational Methods in computer science (pp. 229-249). Vienna, Austria: Springer-Verlag.
  • Bowden, J. (1997). The meanings of Directionals in Taba. In G. Senft (Ed.), Referring to Space: Studies in Austronesian and Papuan Languages (pp. 251-268). New York, NJ: Oxford University Press.
  • Bowerman, M. (1986). First steps in acquiring conditionals. In E. C. Traugott, A. G. t. Meulen, J. S. Reilly, & C. A. Ferguson (Eds.), On conditionals (pp. 285-308). Cambridge University Press.

    Abstract

    This chapter is about the initial flowering of conditionals, if-(then) constructions, in children's spontaneous speech. It is motivated by two major theoretical interests. The first and most immediate is to understand the acquisition process itself. Conditionals are conceptually, and in many languages morphosyntactically, complex. What aspects of cognitive and grammatical development are implicated in their acquisition? Does learning take place in the context of particular interactions with other speakers? Where do conditionals fit in with the acquisition of other complex sentences? What are the semantic, syntactic and pragmatic properties of the first conditionals? Underlying this first interest is a second, more strictly linguistic one. Research of recent years has found increasing evidence that natural languages are constrained in certain ways. The source of these constraints is not yet clearly understood, but it is widely assumed that some of them derive ultimately from properties of children's capacity for language acquisition.

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  • Brown, P. (1997). Isolating the CVC root in Tzeltal Mayan: A study of children's first verbs. In E. V. Clark (Ed.), Proceedings of the 28th Annual Child Language Research Forum (pp. 41-52). Stanford, CA: CSLI/University of Chicago Press.

    Abstract

    How do children isolate the semantic package contained in verb roots in the Mayan language Tzeltal? One might imagine that the canonical CVC shape of roots characteristic of Mayan languages would make the job simple, but the root is normally preceded and followed by affixes which mask its identity. Pye (1983) demonstrated that, in Kiche' Mayan, prosodic salience overrides semantic salience, and children's first words in Kiche' are often composed of only the final (stressed) syllable constituted by the final consonant of the CVC root and a 'meaningless' termination suffix. Intonation thus plays a crucial role in early Kiche' morphological development. Tzeltal presents a rather different picture: The first words of children around the age of 1;6 are bare roots, children strip off all prefixes and suffixes which are obligatory in adult speech. They gradually add them, starting with the suffixes (which receive the main stress), but person prefixes are omitted in some contexts past a child's third birthday, and one obligatory aspectual prefix (x-) is systematically omitted by the four children in my longitudinal study even after they are four years old. Tzeltal children's first verbs generally show faultless isolation of the root. An account in terms of intonation or stress cannot explain this ability (the prefixes are not all syllables; the roots are not always stressed). This paper suggests that probable clues include the fact that the CVC root stays constant across contexts (with some exceptions) whereas the affixes vary, that there are some linguistic contexts where the root occurs without any prefixes (relatively frequent in the input), and that the Tzeltal discourse convention of responding by repeating with appropriate deictic alternation (e.g., "I see it." "Oh, you see it.") highlights the root.
  • Chen, H.-C., & Cutler, A. (1997). Auditory priming in spoken and printed word recognition. In H.-C. Chen (Ed.), Cognitive processing of Chinese and related Asian languages (pp. 77-81). Hong Kong: Chinese University Press.
  • Clark, E. V., & Bowerman, M. (1986). On the acquisition of final voiced stops. In J. A. Fishman (Ed.), The Fergusonian impact: in honor of Charles A. Ferguson on the occasion of his 65th birthday. Volume 1: From phonology to society (pp. 51-68). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Crago, M. B., Allen, S. E. M., & Hough-Eyamie, W. P. (1997). Exploring innateness through cultural and linguistic variation. In M. Gopnik (Ed.), The inheritance and innateness of grammars (pp. 70-90). New York City, NY, USA: Oxford University Press, Inc.
  • Cutler, A., & Jesse, A. (2021). Word stress in speech perception. In J. S. Pardo, L. C. Nygaard, & D. B. Pisoni (Eds.), The handbook of speech perception (2nd ed., pp. 239-265). Chichester: Wiley.
  • Cutler, A., Aslin, R. N., Gervain, J., & Nespor, M. (Eds.). (2021). Special issue in honor of Jacques Mehler, Cognition's founding editor [Special Issue]. Cognition, 213.
  • Cutler, A. (1997). Prosody and the structure of the message. In Y. Sagisaka, N. Campbell, & N. Higuchi (Eds.), Computing prosody: Computational models for processing spontaneous speech (pp. 63-66). Heidelberg: Springer.
  • Cutler, A. (1984). Stress and accent in language production and understanding. In D. Gibbon, & H. Richter (Eds.), Intonation, accent and rhythm: Studies in discourse phonology (pp. 77-90). Berlin: de Gruyter.
  • Cutler, A., & Clifton Jr., C. (1984). The use of prosodic information in word recognition. In H. Bouma, & D. Bouwhuis (Eds.), Attention and Performance X: Control of Language Processes (pp. 183-196). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • Cutler, A., & Clifton, Jr., C. (1984). The use of prosodic information in word recognition. In H. Bouma, & D. G. Bouwhuis (Eds.), Attention and performance X: Control of language processes (pp. 183-196). London: Erlbaum.

    Abstract

    In languages with variable stress placement, lexical stress patterns can convey information about word identity. The experiments reported here address the question of whether lexical stress information can be used in word recognition. The results allow the following conclusions: 1. Prior information as to the number of syllables and lexical stress patterns of words and nonwords does not facilitate lexical decision responses (Experiment 1). 2. The strong correspondences between grammatical category membership and stress pattern in bisyllabic English words (strong-weak stress being associated primarily with nouns, weak-strong with verbs) are not exploited in the recognition of isolated words (Experiment 2). 3. When a change in lexical stress also involves a change in vowel quality, i.e., a segmental as well as a suprasegmental alteration, effects on word recognition are greater when no segmental correlates of suprasegmental changes are involved (Experiments 2 and 3). 4. Despite the above finding, when all other factors are controlled, lexical stress information per se can indeed be shown to play a part in word-recognition process (Experiment 3).
  • Dijkstra, T., & Kempen, G. (1997). Het taalgebruikersmodel. In H. Hulshof, & T. Hendrix (Eds.), De taalcentrale. Amsterdam: Bulkboek.
  • Evans, N., Levinson, S. C., & Sterelny, K. (Eds.). (2021). Thematic issue on evolution of kinship systems [Special Issue]. Biological theory, 16.
  • Eviatar, Z., & Huettig, F. (Eds.). (2021). Literacy and writing systems [Special Issue]. Journal of Cultural Cognitive Science.
  • Frost, R. L. A., & Casillas, M. (2021). Investigating statistical learning of nonadjacent dependencies: Running statistical learning tasks in non-WEIRD populations. In SAGE Research Methods Cases. doi:10.4135/9781529759181.

    Abstract

    Language acquisition is complex. However, one thing that has been suggested to help learning is the way that information is distributed throughout language; co-occurrences among particular items (e.g., syllables and words) have been shown to help learners discover the words that a language contains and figure out how those words are used. Humans’ ability to draw on this information—“statistical learning”—has been demonstrated across a broad range of studies. However, evidence from non-WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) societies is critically lacking, which limits theorizing on the universality of this skill. We extended work on statistical language learning to a new, non-WEIRD linguistic population: speakers of Yélî Dnye, who live on a remote island off mainland Papua New Guinea (Rossel Island). We performed a replication of an existing statistical learning study, training adults on an artificial language with statistically defined words, then examining what they had learnt using a two-alternative forced-choice test. Crucially, we implemented several key amendments to the original study to ensure the replication was suitable for remote field-site testing with speakers of Yélî Dnye. We made critical changes to the stimuli and materials (to test speakers of Yélî Dnye, rather than English), the instructions (we re-worked these significantly, and added practice tasks to optimize participants’ understanding), and the study format (shifting from a lab-based to a portable tablet-based setup). We discuss the requirement for acute sensitivity to linguistic, cultural, and environmental factors when adapting studies to test new populations.

  • Greenfield, M. D., Honing, H., Kotz, S. A., & Ravignani, A. (Eds.). (2021). Synchrony and rhythm interaction: From the brain to behavioural ecology [Special Issue]. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences, 376.
  • Hagoort, P., & Indefrey, P. (1997). De neurale architectuur van het menselijk taalvermogen. In H. Peters (Ed.), Handboek stem-, spraak-, en taalpathologie (pp. 1-36). Houten: Bohn Stafleu Van Loghum.
  • Hagoort, P., & Van Turennout, M. (1997). The electrophysiology of speaking: Possibilities of event-related potential research for speech production. In W. Hulstijn, H. Peters, & P. Van Lieshout (Eds.), Speech motor production and fluency disorders: Brain research in speech production (pp. 351-361). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
  • Hagoort, P., & Wassenaar, M. (1997). Taalstoornissen: Van theorie tot therapie. In B. Deelman, P. Eling, E. De Haan, A. Jennekens, & A. Van Zomeren (Eds.), Klinische Neuropsychologie (pp. 232-248). Meppel: Boom.
  • Hagoort, P. (1997). Zonder fosfor geen gedachten: Gagarin, geest en brein. In Brain & Mind (pp. 6-14). Utrecht: Reünistenvereniging Veritas.
  • Heeschen, V., Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I., Grammer, K., Schiefenhövel, W., & Senft, G. (1986). Sprachliches Verhalten. In Generalverwaltung der MPG (Ed.), Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Jahrbuch 1986 (pp. 394-396). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht.
  • Hellwig, B., Defina, R., Kidd, E., Allen, S. E. M., Davidson, L., & Kelly, B. F. (2021). Child language documentation: The sketch acquisition project. In G. Haig, S. Schnell, & F. Seifart (Eds.), Doing corpus-based typology with spoken language data: State of the art (pp. 29-58). Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press.

    Abstract

    This paper reports on an on-going project designed to collect comparable corpus data on child language and child-directed language in under-researched languages. Despite a long history of cross-linguistic research, there is a severe empirical bias within language acquisition research: Data is available for less than 2% of the world's languages, heavily skewed towards the larger and better-described languages. As a result, theories of language development tend to be grounded in a non-representative sample, and we know little about the acquisition of typologically-diverse languages from different families, regions, or sociocultural contexts. It is very likely that the reasons are to be found in the forbidding methodological challenges of constructing child language corpora under fieldwork conditions with their strict requirements on participant selection, sampling intervals, and amounts of data. There is thus an urgent need for proposals that facilitate and encourage language acquisition research across a wide variety of languages. Adopting a language documentation perspective, we illustrate an approach that combines the construction of manageable corpora of natural interaction with and between children with a sketch description of the corpus data – resulting in a set of comparable corpora and comparable sketches that form the basis for cross-linguistic comparisons.
  • Indefrey, P. (1997). PET research in language production. In W. Hulstijn, H. F. M. Peters, & P. H. H. M. Van Lieshout (Eds.), Speech production: motor control, brain research and fluency disorders (pp. 269-278). Amsterdam: Elsevier.

    Abstract

    The aim of this paper is to discuss an inherent difficulty of PET (and fMRI) research in language production. On the one hand, language production presupposes some degree of freedom for the subject, on the other hand, interpretability of results presupposes restrictions of this freedom. This difficulty is reflected in the existing PET literature in some neglect of the general principle to design experiments in such a way that the results do not allow for alternative interpretations. It is argued that by narrowing down the scope of experiments a gain in interpretability can be achieved.
  • Karaca, F., Brouwer, S., Unsworth, S., & Huettig, F. (2021). Prediction in bilingual children: The missing piece of the puzzle. In E. Kaan, & T. Grüter (Eds.), Prediction in Second Language Processing and Learning (pp. 116-137). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    A wealth of studies has shown that more proficient monolingual speakers are better at predicting upcoming information during language comprehension. Similarly, prediction skills of adult second language (L2) speakers in their L2 have also been argued to be modulated by their L2 proficiency. How exactly language proficiency and prediction are linked, however, is yet to be systematically investigated. One group of language users which has the potential to provide invaluable insights into this link is bilingual children. In this paper, we compare bilingual children’s prediction skills with those of monolingual children and adult L2 speakers, and show how investigating bilingual children’s prediction skills may contribute to our understanding of how predictive processing works.
  • Kempen, G. (1986). Beyond word processing. In E. Cluff, & G. Bunting (Eds.), Information management yearbook 1986 (pp. 178-181). London: IDPM Publications.
  • Kempen, G. (1986). Kunstmatige intelligentie en gezond verstand. In P. Hagoort, & R. Maessen (Eds.), Geest, computer, kunst (pp. 118-123). Utrecht: Stichting Grafiet.
  • Kempen, G. (1997). Taalpsychologie week. In Wetenschappelijke Scheurkalender 1998. Beek: Natuur & Techniek.

    Abstract

    [Seven one-page psycholinguistic sketches]
  • Kita, S. (1997). Miburi to Kotoba [gesture and speech]. In H. Kobayashi, & M. Sasaki (Eds.), Kodomotachi no gengokakutoku [Child language development] (pp. 68-84). Tokyo, Japan: Taishukan.
  • Klein, W. (2021). Das „Heidelberger Forschungsprojekt Pidgin-Deutsch “und die Folgen. In B. Ahrenholz, & M. Rost-Roth (Eds.), Ein Blick zurück nach vorn: Frühe deutsche Forschung zu Zweitspracherwerb, Migration, Mehrsprachigkeit und zweitsprachbezogener Sprachdidaktik sowie ihre Bedeutung heute (pp. 50-95). Berlin: De Gruyter.
  • Klein, W. (1984). Bühler Ellipse. In C. F. Graumann, & T. Herrmann (Eds.), Karl Bühlers Axiomatik: Fünfzig Jahre Axiomatik der Sprachwissenschaften (pp. 117-141). Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann.
  • Klein, W., & Perdue, C. (1986). Comment résourdre une tache verbale complexe avec peu de moyens linguistiques? In A. Giacomi, & D. Véronique (Eds.), Acquisition d'une langue étrangère (pp. 306-330). Aix-en-Provence: Service des Publications de l'Universite de Provence.
  • Klein, W., & Nüse, R. (1997). La complexité du simple: L'éxpression de la spatialité dans le langage humain. In M. Denis (Ed.), Langage et cognition spatiale (pp. 1-23). Paris: Masson.
  • Klein, W. (1986). Intonation und Satzmodalität in einfachen Fällen: Einige Beobachtungen. In E. Slembek (Ed.), Miteinander sprechen und handeln: Festschrift für Hellmut Geissner (pp. 161-177). Königstein Ts.: Scriptor.
  • Klein, W. (1997). On the "Imperfective paradox" and related problems. In M. Schwarz, C. Dürscheid, & K.-H. Ramers (Eds.), Sprache im Fokus: Festschrift für Heinz Vater (pp. 387-397). Tübingen: Niemeyer.
  • Klein, W. (Ed.). (1997). Technologischer Wandel in den Philologien [Special Issue]. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik, (106).
  • Klein, W. (Ed.). (1984). Textverständlichkeit - Textverstehen [Special Issue]. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik, (55).
  • Klein, W. (Ed.). (1986). Sprachverfall [Special Issue]. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik, (62).
  • Klein, W. (1997). Und nur dieses allein haben wir. In D. Rosenstein, & A. Kreutz (Eds.), Begegnungen, Facetten eines Jahrhunderts (pp. 445-449). Siegen: Carl Boeschen Verlag.
  • Kupisch, T., Pereira Soares, S. M., Puig-Mayenco, E., & Rothman, J. (2021). Multilingualism and Chomsky's Generative Grammar. In N. Allott (Ed.), A companion to Chomsky (pp. 232-242). doi:10.1002/9781119598732.ch15.

    Abstract

    Like Einstein's general theory of relativity is concerned with explaining the basics of an observable experience – i.e., gravity – most people take for granted that Chomsky's theory of generative grammar (GG) is concerned with the basic nature of language. This chapter highlights a mere subset of central constructs in GG, showing how they have featured prominently and thus shaped formal linguistic studies in multilingualism. Because multilingualism includes a wide range of nonmonolingual populations, the constructs are divided across child bilingualism and adult third language for greater coverage. In the case of the former, the chapter examines how poverty of the stimulus has been investigated. Using the nascent field of L3/Ln acquisition as the backdrop, it discusses how the GG constructs of I-language versus E-language sit at the core of debates regarding the very notion of what linguistic transfer and mental representations should be taken to be.
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (1984). Geesteswetenschappelijke theorie als kompas voor de gangbare mening. In S. Dresden, & D. Van de Kaa (Eds.), Wetenschap ten goede en ten kwade (pp. 42-52). Amsterdam: North Holland.
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (1962). Motion breaking and the perception of causality. In A. Michotte (Ed.), Causalité, permanence et réalité phénoménales: Etudes de psychologie expérimentale (pp. 244-258). Louvain: Publications Universitaires.
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (1997). Language. In G. Adelman, & B. H. Smith (Eds.), Elsevier's encyclopedia of neuroscience (CD-ROM edition). Amsterdam: Elsevier Science.
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (1986). Herdenking van Joseph Maria Franciscus Jaspars (16 maart 1934 - 31 juli 1985). In Jaarboek 1986 Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (pp. 187-189). Amsterdam: North Holland.
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (1984). Some perceptual limitations on talking about space. In A. J. Van Doorn, W. A. Van de Grind, & J. J. Koenderink (Eds.), Limits in perception (pp. 323-358). Utrecht: VNU Science Press.
  • Levelt, W. J. M. (1986). Zur sprachlichen Abbildung des Raumes: Deiktische und intrinsische Perspektive. In H. Bosshardt (Ed.), Perspektiven auf Sprache. Interdisziplinäre Beiträge zum Gedenken an Hans Hörmann (pp. 187-211). Berlin: De Gruyter.
  • Levinson, S. C. (1997). Contextualizing 'contextualization cues'. In S. Eerdmans, C. Prevignano, & P. Thibault (Eds.), Discussing communication analysis 1: John J. Gumperz (pp. 24-30). Lausanne: Beta Press.
  • Levinson, S. C. (1997). Deixis. In P. V. Lamarque (Ed.), Concise encyclopedia of philosophy of language (pp. 214-219). Oxford: Elsevier.
  • Levinson, S. C. (1997). From outer to inner space: Linguistic categories and non-linguistic thinking. In J. Nuyts, & E. Pederson (Eds.), Language and conceptualization (pp. 13-45). Cambridge University Press.
  • Levinson, S. C., Pederson, E., & Senft, G. (1997). Sprache und menschliche Orientierungsfähigkeiten. In Jahrbuch der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (pp. 322-327). München: Generalverwaltung der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft.
  • Levshina, N. (2021). Conditional inference trees and random forests. In M. Paquot, & T. Gries (Eds.), Practical Handbook of Corpus Linguistics (pp. 611-643). New York: Springer.
  • Levshina, N., & Moran, S. (Eds.). (2021). Efficiency in human languages: Corpus evidence for universal principles [Special Issue]. Linguistics Vanguard, 7(s3).
  • Mak, M., & Willems, R. M. (2021). Mental simulation during literary reading. In D. Kuiken, & A. M. Jacobs (Eds.), Handbook of empirical literary studies (pp. 63-84). Berlin: De Gruyter.

    Abstract

    Readers experience a number of sensations during reading. They do
    not – or do not only – process words and sentences in a detached, abstract
    manner. Instead they “perceive” what they read about. They see descriptions of
    scenery, feel what characters feel, and hear the sounds in a story. These sensa-
    tions tend to be grouped under the umbrella terms “mental simulation” and
    “mental imagery.” This chapter provides an overview of empirical research on
    the role of mental simulation during literary reading. Our chapter also discusses
    what mental simulation is and how it relates to mental imagery. Moreover, it
    explores how mental simulation plays a role in leading models of literary read-
    ing and investigates under what circumstances mental simulation occurs dur-
    ing literature reading. Finally, the effect of mental simulation on the literary
    reader’s experience is discussed, and suggestions and unresolved issues in this
    field are formulated.
  • McQueen, J. M., & Cutler, A. (1997). Cognitive processes in speech perception. In W. J. Hardcastle, & J. D. Laver (Eds.), The handbook of phonetic sciences (pp. 556-585). Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Nas, G., Kempen, G., & Hudson, P. (1984). De rol van spelling en klank bij woordherkenning tijdens het lezen. In A. Thomassen, L. Noordman, & P. Elling (Eds.), Het leesproces. Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger.
  • Noordman, L. G., & Vonk, W. (1997). The different functions of a conjunction in constructing a representation of the discourse. In J. Costermans, & M. Fayol (Eds.), Processing interclausal relationships: studies in the production and comprehension of text (pp. 75-94). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  • Rossi, G. (2021). Conversation analysis (CA). In J. Stanlaw (Ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology. Wiley-Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9781118786093.iela0080.

    Abstract

    Conversation analysis (CA) is an approach to the study of language and social interaction that puts at center stage its sequential development. The chain of initiating and responding actions that characterizes any interaction is a source of internal evidence for the meaning of social behavior as it exposes the understandings that participants themselves give of what one another is doing. Such an analysis requires the close and repeated inspection of audio and video recordings of naturally occurring interaction, supported by transcripts and other forms of annotation. Distributional regularities are complemented by a demonstration of participants' orientation to deviant behavior. CA has long maintained a constructive dialogue and reciprocal influence with linguistic anthropology. This includes a recent convergence on the cross-linguistic and cross-cultural study of social interaction.
  • Senft, G. (2021). A very special letter. In T. Szczerbowski (Ed.), Language "as round as an orange".. In memory of Professor Krystyna Pisarkowa on the 90th anniversary of her birth (pp. 367). Krakow: Uniwersytetu Pedagogicznj.
  • Senft, G. (1997). Magic, missionaries, and religion - Some observations from the Trobriand Islands. In T. Otto, & A. Borsboom (Eds.), Cultural dynamics of religious change in Oceania (pp. 45-58). Leiden: KITLV press.
  • Senft, G. (1997). Introduction. In G. Senft (Ed.), Referring to space - Studies in Austronesian and Papuan languages (pp. 1-38). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  • Seuren, P. A. M. (1986). Anaphora resolution. In T. Myers, K. Brown, & B. McGonigle (Eds.), Reasoning and discourse processes (pp. 187-207). London: Academic Press.
  • Seuren, P. A. M., & Wekker, H. (1986). Semantic transparency as a factor in Creole genesis. In P. Muysken, & N. Smith (Eds.), Substrata versus universals in Creole genesis: Papers from the Amsterdam Creole Workshop, April 1985 (pp. 57-70). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Trabasso, T., & Ozyurek, A. (1997). Communicating evaluation in narrative understanding. In T. Givon (Ed.), Conversation: Cognitive, communicative and social perspectives (pp. 268-302). Philadelphia, PA: Benjamins.
  • Trujillo, J. P., Levinson, S. C., & Holler, J. (2021). Visual information in computer-mediated interaction matters: Investigating the association between the availability of gesture and turn transition timing in conversation. In M. Kurosu (Ed.), Human-Computer Interaction. Design and User Experience Case Studies. HCII 2021 (pp. 643-657). Cham: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-78468-3_44.

    Abstract

    Natural human interaction involves the fast-paced exchange of speaker turns. Crucially, if a next speaker waited with planning their turn until the current speaker was finished, language production models would predict much longer turn transition times than what we observe. Next speakers must therefore prepare their turn in parallel to listening. Visual signals likely play a role in this process, for example by helping the next speaker to process the ongoing utterance and thus prepare an appropriately-timed response.

    To understand how visual signals contribute to the timing of turn-taking, and to move beyond the mostly qualitative studies of gesture in conversation, we examined unconstrained, computer-mediated conversations between 20 pairs of participants while systematically manipulating speaker visibility. Using motion tracking and manual gesture annotation, we assessed 1) how visibility affected the timing of turn transitions, and 2) whether use of co-speech gestures and 3) the communicative kinematic features of these gestures were associated with changes in turn transition timing.

    We found that 1) decreased visibility was associated with less tightly timed turn transitions, and 2) the presence of gestures was associated with more tightly timed turn transitions across visibility conditions. Finally, 3) structural and salient kinematics contributed to gesture’s facilitatory effect on turn transition times.

    Our findings suggest that speaker visibility--and especially the presence and kinematic form of gestures--during conversation contributes to the temporal coordination of conversational turns in computer-mediated settings. Furthermore, our study demonstrates that it is possible to use naturalistic conversation and still obtain controlled results.
  • Vernes, S. C., Janik, V. M., Fitch, W. T., & Slater, P. J. B. (Eds.). (2021). Vocal learning in animals and humans [Special Issue]. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences, 376.
  • Weissenborn, J., & Stralka, R. (1984). Das Verstehen von Mißverständnissen. Eine ontogenetische Studie. In Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik (pp. 113-134). Stuttgart: Metzler.
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