Phonological reduction and intelligibility in task-oriented dialogue
This thesis explores the implications of Lindblom's theory of Hyper- and Hypo-articulation (Lindblom, 1983, 1990) for word intelligibility and the likely application of phonological reduction processes in spontaneous discourse, using data from the HCRC Map Task Corpus. Lindblom claims that variability in articulatory clarity is a reflection of speakers' assessments of their listeners' information requirements: speakers hyper-articulate when listeners require maximum acoustic input from with information from other sources. To prevent speakers from over-economising to a point of unintelligibility, hypo-articulation is governed by a constraint of lexical distinctiveness: speakers hypo-articulate only while listeners are able to distinguish the target from competing lexical items. Three main questions are addressed. First, do the informational needs of the listener affect the articulatory clarity of words produced in spontaneous conversation? A series of intelligibility experiments shows that repeated mentions of landmark names are less intelligible than their introductory mentions, independent of which speaker utters either mention, and who can see the landmark on their map. Although the results can be interpreted
Sotillo, Catherine Frances
Phonological reduction and intelligibility in task-oriented dialogue. This thesis explores the implications of Lindblom's theory of Hyper- and Hypo-articulation (Lindblom, 1983, 1990) for word intelligibility and the likely application of phonological reduction processes in spontaneous discourse, using data from the HCRC Map Task Corpus. Lindblom claims that variability in articulatory clarity is a reflection of speakers' assessments of their listeners' information requirements: speakers hyper-articulate when listeners require maximum acoustic input from with information from other sources. To prevent speakers from over-economising to a point of unintelligibility, hypo-articulation is governed by a constraint of lexical distinctiveness: speakers hypo-articulate only while listeners are able to distinguish the target from competing lexical items. Three main questions are addressed. First, do the informational needs of the listener affect the articulatory clarity of words produced in spontaneous conversation? A series of intelligibility experiments shows that repeated mentions of landmark names are less intelligible than their introductory mentions, independent of which speaker utters either mention, and who can see the landmark on their map. Although the results can be interpreted
phonological reduction intelligibility task_oriented dialogue explores_implication theory hyper articulation word intelligibility likely application phonological reduction process spontaneous discourse use data map task corpus claim variability articulatory clarity reflection speaker assessment listener information requirement speaker hyper articulate listener require maximum acoustic input information source prevent speaker over point articulation govern constraint lexical distinctiveness speaker articulate listener able distinguish target compete lexical_item three_main question_address first informational need listener affect articulatory clarity word produce spontaneous conversation series intelligibility show repeat mention landmark names less intelligible introductory mention independent speaker either mention see landmark map although interpret