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Related Experiment Video

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Foreign Accent and Forensic Speaker Identification in Voice Lineups: The Influence of Acoustic Features Based on Prosody

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Language-Specific Constraints on Conversation: Evidence from Danish and Norwegian.

Christina Dideriksen¹, Morten H Christiansen^1,2,3, Mark Dingemanse⁴

¹School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University.

Cognitive Science

|November 27, 2023

Summary

Native language sound structure impacts conversational strategies. Danish speakers use more linguistic entrainment to enhance understanding in their opaque language compared to Norwegian speakers.

Keywords:

Backchannels Common Ground Conversational dynamics Conversational repair Interactive Alignment

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Area of Science:

Psycholinguistics
Sociolinguistics
Cognitive Science

Background:

Mutual understanding in conversation relies on devices like backchannels, repair, and linguistic entrainment.
Cross-linguistic differences may influence the use of these conversational strategies.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how native language sound structure affects conversational devices.
To compare Danish and Norwegian speakers' use of conversational strategies.

Main Methods:

Systematically manipulated conversational contexts were used to compare Danish and Norwegian speakers.
Analysis focused on the frequency and patterns of backchannels, repair, and linguistic entrainment.

Main Results:

Linguistic entrainment was significantly higher in Danish than in Norwegian.
Backchannels and repair patterns showed more complex variations across languages and contexts.
Danish speakers may use entrainment to compensate for their language's opaque sound structure.

Conclusions:

Native language characteristics, specifically sound structure opacity, systematically influence conversational processing and strategy use.
Findings suggest a top-down compensatory mechanism in Danish speakers to maintain conversational understanding.
This highlights the interplay between linguistic, cognitive, and social factors in conversation.