Document Type
Paper Presentation
Presenter Language
English
Research Area
Pragmatics
Location
MBSC Dodge Room 302A
Start Date
17-10-2024 1:00 PM
End Date
17-10-2024 1:30 PM
Abstract
Research has shown that expectations of speaker ability affect hearer interpretation in different ways. For example, research on accented speech has found that participants are more forgiving of implausible (Gibson et al. 2017; Hanulíková. et al. 2012) or pragmatically under-informative (Fairchild et al. 2020) utterances when spoken with accented speech.
Within the realm of modal meaning, Tucker (2001) impressionistically noted a preference for possibly to be uttered rather than maybe/perhaps when the speaker was an expert on the topic at hand (1). He claimed that possibly expressed an “implied objectivity” which maybe/perhaps did not. The present study operationalizes and tests Tucker’s “implied objectivity” by measuring the effects of reliability on the selection of Spanish posiblemente and quizás among Spanish speakers. Two hypotheses are tested: First, that hearers are sensitive to the reliability of the evidence used to make an assessment such that posiblemente is preferred when the evidence is more reliable. Second, that hearers are sensitive to the reliability of the speaker making the assessment such that posiblemente is preferred when the speaker is an expert in the relevant domain.
36 native speakers of Colombian Spanish completed a 20-item contextualized two-alternative forced choice preference task. Each context was manipulated for the type of evidence the speaker had when making their assessment (direct vs. indirect) and for the expertise of the speaker (expert vs. non-expert) in the relevant domain (2).
Results of a generalized mixed-effects linear regression (p = 0.0013) indicated that speaker expertise was a significant predictor of adverb selection such that posiblemente was preferred in contexts of expertise. Access to evidence had no effect on adverb selection. Speaker reliability thus emerges as an important contextual feature which can distinguish otherwise synonymous forms. In this case, posiblemente is perceived as more compatible with the reasonable, well-informed assessments expected from experts, while the speculative quizás is compatible with less informed assessments expected from non-experts. These results show that hearers are not only attentive to the semantic content of utterances, but also to whether the language used by the speaker is sufficient and appropriate given the speaker’s presumed capabilities.
How expectations of speaker knowledge predict form selection: Epistemic adverbs in contexts of expertise
MBSC Dodge Room 302A
Research has shown that expectations of speaker ability affect hearer interpretation in different ways. For example, research on accented speech has found that participants are more forgiving of implausible (Gibson et al. 2017; Hanulíková. et al. 2012) or pragmatically under-informative (Fairchild et al. 2020) utterances when spoken with accented speech.
Within the realm of modal meaning, Tucker (2001) impressionistically noted a preference for possibly to be uttered rather than maybe/perhaps when the speaker was an expert on the topic at hand (1). He claimed that possibly expressed an “implied objectivity” which maybe/perhaps did not. The present study operationalizes and tests Tucker’s “implied objectivity” by measuring the effects of reliability on the selection of Spanish posiblemente and quizás among Spanish speakers. Two hypotheses are tested: First, that hearers are sensitive to the reliability of the evidence used to make an assessment such that posiblemente is preferred when the evidence is more reliable. Second, that hearers are sensitive to the reliability of the speaker making the assessment such that posiblemente is preferred when the speaker is an expert in the relevant domain.
36 native speakers of Colombian Spanish completed a 20-item contextualized two-alternative forced choice preference task. Each context was manipulated for the type of evidence the speaker had when making their assessment (direct vs. indirect) and for the expertise of the speaker (expert vs. non-expert) in the relevant domain (2).
Results of a generalized mixed-effects linear regression (p = 0.0013) indicated that speaker expertise was a significant predictor of adverb selection such that posiblemente was preferred in contexts of expertise. Access to evidence had no effect on adverb selection. Speaker reliability thus emerges as an important contextual feature which can distinguish otherwise synonymous forms. In this case, posiblemente is perceived as more compatible with the reasonable, well-informed assessments expected from experts, while the speculative quizás is compatible with less informed assessments expected from non-experts. These results show that hearers are not only attentive to the semantic content of utterances, but also to whether the language used by the speaker is sufficient and appropriate given the speaker’s presumed capabilities.