Optimal design in language production
Psycholinguistic accounts of language production have traditionally been informed by evidence from highly constrained, non-interactive experimental tasks, such as picture description and sentence completion. These studies are informative about the mechanisms and representations that underlie production, but they tell us little about the impact of communicative <i>context </i>on those basic processes. This thesis examines language behaviour in more naturalistic situations, where the speaker is talking to a co-present addressee. This kind of setting more closely reflects production outside the laboratory, where speakers need to make themselves understood if communication is to be successful. In particular, the thesis investigates whether speakers follow a principle of âoptimal designâ at the level of grammatical encoding. Optimal design can be interpreted in different ways; speakers may say things that are easy to produce, maximising efficiency for themselves. Alternatively, they might aim to produce messages that are easy for an audience to understand (or they might trade off between these goals). The thesis focuses on whether speakers take addressesâ perspectives into account when they formulate syntactic
Haywood, Sarah L.
Optimal design in language production. Psycholinguistic accounts of language production have traditionally been informed by evidence from highly constrained, non-interactive experimental tasks, such as picture description and sentence completion. These studies are informative about the mechanisms and representations that underlie production, but they tell us little about the impact of communicative <i>context </i>on those basic processes. This thesis examines language behaviour in more naturalistic situations, where the speaker is talking to a co-present addressee. This kind of setting more closely reflects production outside the laboratory, where speakers need to make themselves understood if communication is to be successful. In particular, the thesis investigates whether speakers follow a principle of âoptimal designâ at the level of grammatical encoding. Optimal design can be interpreted in different ways; speakers may say things that are easy to produce, maximising efficiency for themselves. Alternatively, they might aim to produce messages that are easy for an audience to understand (or they might trade off between these goals). The thesis focuses on whether speakers take addressesâ perspectives into account when they formulate syntactic
optimal design language_production psycholinguistic account language_production traditionally inform evidence highly constrain non interactive experimental task picture description sentence completion study informative mechanisms representation underlie production tell little impact communicative_context basic process examines language behaviour naturalistic situation speaker talk present addressee kind set closely reflect production outside laboratory speaker need make understood communication successful particular investigate_whether speaker follow principle optimal design level grammatical encoding optimal design interpret different_way speaker may say thing easy produce maximise efficiency themselves alternatively might aim produce message easy audience might trade goal focus whether speaker take address perspective account formulate syntactic