Referential Choices in a Collaborative Storytelling Task: Discourse Stages and Referential Complexity Matter

Area of Science:

• Linguistics
• Psycholinguistics
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Referent accessibility in narrative discourse is dynamic, not static.
• Speakers adapt referential expressions based on character prominence and discourse context.
• Understanding these adjustments is key to comprehending natural language production.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how speakers modify referential choices in a collaborative storytelling task.
• To examine the impact of discourse stages (introduction, maintaining, shift) on referential strategies.
• To assess the influence of referential complexity (number of characters, gender ambiguity) on these choices.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a novel collaborative storytelling in sequence task.
• Manipulated referential complexity by varying character number (1 vs. 2) and gender ambiguity (same vs. different).
• Coded data for reference marker types and reference content (information specificity).

Main Results:

• Confirmed expected effects of discourse stages on reference markers (indefinite, pronouns, definite).
• Found that character number influenced pronoun and definite marker use during the maintaining stage.
• Observed that gender ambiguity affected reference content specificity during the shift stage.

Conclusions:

• Speaker referential behavior is flexible, adapting to both discourse stage and referential complexity.
• Reference content, often overlooked, plays a significant role in nuanced referential marking.
• Findings contribute to models of language production and the dynamic nature of reference in discourse.