Mechanisms of conversation: audience design and memory

It is well established that conversational partners jointly establish brief labels for repeatedly mentioned entities. When speaking to a new partner who is unfamiliar with the labels, speakers use longer expressions to facilitate understanding. How this process of audience design scales up to conversations among three or more individuals is unknown. Further, while memory is thought to play an essential role in audience design, the link between memory for language and language use is not well explored. This dissertation consists of two parts that examine these two issues. In Chapter 2, I propose, and test, potential hypotheses regarding how speakers design referring expressions in multiparty conversation. The results of four experiments help to elucidate the mechanisms that support audience design in multiparty conversation. In Chapter 3, I explore the memory contributions to the referential phenomenon of lexical differentiation, aiming to understand the relationship between memory for discourse referents in dialogue and referential form. The results of three experiments provide insights into how memory for the discourse history guides language use during conversation. Taken together, these findings allow us to better understand the mechanisms of audience design and the interplay between language use and memory in conversation.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2016

Author dc:creator

• Yoon, Si On

Contributors dc:contributor

• Brown-Schmidt, Sarah
• Benjamin, Aaron S.
• Dell, Gary S.
• Fisher, Cynthia L.
• Watson, Duane G.

• Language production
• Multiparty conversation
• Audience design
• Common ground
• Reference
• Discourse
• Lexical differentiation
• Memory

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2016 Si On Yoon

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/92683

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/92683