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Lexical alignment is affected by addressee but not speaker nativeness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 March 2021

Ellise Suffill ,
Timea Kutasi ,
Martin J. Pickering  and
Holly P. Branigan
Ellise Suffill*
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, U.K.
Timea Kutasi
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, U.K.
Martin J. Pickering
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, U.K.
Holly P. Branigan
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, U.K.
*
Author for correspondence: Ellise Suffill, E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Interlocutors tend to refer to objects using the same names as each other. We investigated whether native and non-native interlocutors’ tendency to do so is influenced by speakers’ nativeness and by their beliefs about an interlocutor's nativeness. A native or non-native participant and a native or non-native confederate directed each other around a map to deliver objects to locations. We manipulated whether confederates referred to objects using a favored or disfavored name, while controlling for confederates’ language behavior. We found evidence of audience design for native and non-native addressees: participants were more likely to use a disfavored name after a non-native confederate used that name than after a native confederate used that name; this tendency did not differ between native and non-native participants. Results suggest that both native and non-native speakers can adapt to the language of non-native partners through non-automatic, goal-directed mechanisms of alignment during cognitively demanding communicative tasks.

Keywords

lexical alignmentprimingaudience designnative–non-native interaction
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , August 2021 , pp. 746 - 757
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

*

Denotes joint first authors.

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