Chapter 9

Language Production

Principles of Communication:Grice’s Maxims

Cooperative Principle

A basic underlying assumption we make when we speak to one another is that we are trying to cooperate with one another to construct meaningful conversations.

Violations of these maxims can be indicators of sarcasm or non-literal meaning.

Maxims• Quantity : Make your contribution as informative as

is required, but not more, or less, than is required.

• Quality: Do not say that which you believe to be false or for which you lack evidence.

• Relation: Be relevant

• Manner: Be clear, brief and orderly

Turn Taking

The process by which people alternate between speaking and listening.

Overlap of turns (when two or more participants talk at the same time) occurs in about 5% of cases and this suggests that speakers know how, when and where to enter. They signal that one turn has come to an end and another should begin.

Turn Taking Cues

• Intonation• Eye Gaze• Gestures

In general the current speaker chooses the next speaker

Ways of hanging on to ones turn.

Gestures

Hedges (meaningless sounds or repetitions)

OVERLAPPING RULES

Where, despite the rules, overlapping talk occurs, studies revealed the operation of a system:•one speaker drops out rapidly•as soon as one speaker thus ‘gets into the clear’, he typically recycles precisely the part of the turn obscured by the overlap.•If one speaker does not immediately drop out, there is available a competitive allocation system, whereby the speaker who ‘upgrades’ most, wins the floor. (upgrading = increased amplitude, slowing tempo, lengthened vowels, etc.)

Adjacency pairs

Have two parts, by di erent speakers, where part 2 ffis conditionally relevant given part 1. Part 1 is a proposal, and part 2 is expected to be the uptake of that proposal.Example:•Question/answer•Greeting/greeting•Invitation/acceptance(declination)•Offer/acceptance (refusal)

Maxim of Quantity : Make your contribution as informative as is required, but not more, or less, than is required.

Often violated (33% of time)

Perhaps figuring out what is needed is cognitively difficult – leading to errors.

Enhancing Communication

Gestures

More Gestures used when people think they are communicating with others rather than to a machine (Mol et al., 2009).

Speakers adjust their gestures to adjust to the listener’s needs

Speakers underestimate the value of Gestures to the listener (Gerwing & Allison, 2009).

Speakers used words and gestures to describe the layout of an apartment. Speakers judged only a quarter of their gestures as providing essential information that was missing from the speech

Actual analysis indicated that almost all gestures contributed information that was not in the words.

Figure 9.2 The number of times participants conveyed information about location, relative location, size, and shape by gestures and by words. From Gerwing and Allison (2009). Copyright © 2009 John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Gestures commonly used to convey spatial information (Bevelas, 2008)

(Bevelas, 2008)

Speakers also use gestures on the phone (not for communication).

Gestures on phone are fewer and smaller than face-to-face.

Speaker describing the top of the skirt (telephone condition). Arrows indicate the size and direction of the gestures.

Restricting gestures reduced number of descriptions participants were able to give a name to (Frick-Horbury & Guttentag, 1998)

Example:

A thin oval tablet with a hole for the thumb at one end by which a painter holds it and mixes different shades of pigment on it. (Pallette)

Discourse Markers

a word or phrase 

that is relatively

syntax-independent and does not change the meaning of the sentence, and has a somewhat empty meaning.

Discourse Markers

Analysis shows these seemingly meaningless utterances serve roles in conversation.

“um” – indicate problems deciding what to say next.

“you know” – check for understanding.

“like” – mark of sarcasm

“oh and so” – change of topic

Oh - change is relevant to speaker

So – change is relevant to listener

Prosodic CuesRhythm, stress and intonation

Used to disambiguate the meaning of sentences.

Common GroundMutual beliefs, expectations and knowledge

Speakers more likely to make incorrect local assumptions (what the listener knows or is attending to) than to make incorrect global (preferred language, general knowledge, shared personal experiences).

Judging Common Ground takes Cognitive Resources

Horton and Keysar (1996) speakers describe objects for listeners. When descriptions made under no time constraints incorporated common ground with the listener, common ground was not used when the speakers were under time pressure.

Clark & Krych (2004)

Pairs of participants were videotaped as a director instructed a builder in assembling 10 Lego models.

Three conditions: •directors could see the builders’ workspace; •they could not see workspace•gave instructions by audiotape.

Two partners were much slower when directors

could not see the builders workspace, and they made many more errors when the instructions were audiotaped (5% vs. 39%).

In condition one, directors often rapidly altered what they said to maximize common ground.

Monitoring and Adjustment model assumes that common ground does not play a role in the initial plan of utterances. Initial plan is not designed for the specific knowledge of the addressee. Speakers plan their utterances using information which is available to them regardless of whether or not the information they use is part of the common ground with the addressee.

When their workspace was visible, builders communicated with directors by exhibiting, poising, pointing at, placing, and orienting blocks, and by eye gaze, head nods, and head shakes, all timed with precision. Directors often responded by altering their utterances midcourse.

Stages of Speech Production

Four levels of planning.

1) Semantic: Deep Structure (thought)

2) Syntactic: Phrase Structure of the sentence

3) Morphological : Words and Grammatical Forms

4)Phonological Articulation of Phonemes

Tip-of-the-Tongue (ToT) State:

A feeling that one knows a response yet is unable to produce it

Brown and McNeil (1966) – Is the feeling of knowing an illusion?–Task:

• Retrieve the word corresponding to its provided definition– e.g. “A musical instrument comprising a frame holding a series of tubes

struck by hammers”• Participants were asked to indicate if they were in a ToT state

– If so, guess the number of syllables and any other information about the word (e.g. first letter)

–Results:• Participants are better at remembering associated

information than they were at producing the actual word (e.g. XYLOPHONE)

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ToT – semantic processing is successful but phonological is not.

•Unusual sounding words more likely to produce ToT.

•ToT resolution can be aided by giving phonologically similar words.

Bilinguals experience more ToT than monolinguals.

Perhaps due to interference from phonological representations of words from multiple languages.

But the same Effect occurs for English and ASL bilinguals.

Perhaps about frequency of word use.

Phrase Structure - organization of sentence constituents

HierarchicalSentencesPhrases -words with grammatical roles (e.g., verbs, nouns, adjectives etc.)

Phrase-structure rules are a way to describe a given language's syntax. They are used to break down a natural language sentence into its constituent parts.

What is a constituent? A word or group of words that function as a unit and can make up larger grammatical units.

Sentence

Noun Phrase Verb Phrase

Article Adj Noun Verb Noun Phrase

Article adj Noun

The red squirrel buried the large nut.

Tree diagram - levels of constituents

Sentences can be rearranged as long as the constitutes are intact.

E.g.,George/ ran /up the mountain.Up the mountain/George/ran.

Martha/ stood up /her blind date.Up her blind date Martha stood.

the red squirrel buried the large nutthe red squirrel the large nut buried the large nut the red squirrel buried the large nut buried by the red squirrelburied the large nut the red squirrelburied the red squirrel the large nut

Rearrangement of Constituents follow rules.

Phrase structure rules

Rules that determine…• what goes into a phrase (‘constituents’)• how the constituents are ordered

Transformational Grammar (Chomsky)

1. Surface Structure - actual words used

2. Deep structure - underlying meaning - abstract

The cat has a big bushy tail.The feline has a big fluffy tail.The cat’s tail is big and bushy.The big bushy tail is the cats.

The same deep structure can by conveyedusing several different surface structures.

Similar surface structures can have verydifferent deep structure.

Martha Stood up Tall.Martha Stood up Tom.

Transformational Grammar rules translatesKernels to other surface structures.E.g., John smelled the cookies (KERNAL, active)The cookies were smelled by John (passive)Did John smell the cookies? (interrogative)Were the cookies smelled by John? (passive,interrogative)Were the cookies not smelled by John?(passive, interrogative, negation)

In general, more transformations, thelonger comprehension takes.

Take home lesson: – when possible, speak and write in the active voice.

Spreading Activation

In the planning stage activation spreads from one node (e.g., word) to related nodes.

In planning the several words and sounds are activated in parallel.

Speech errors occur when an incorrect item is more activated than the correct one.

Lexical Bias Effect: speech errors form words rather than non-words.

Process of Converting Thought to Speech1.Thought mapped on to a phrase structure.

Ferreria & Swets (2002) – dual task delays beginning of speech – not time to speak.Sentence structure planned out before beginning to speak.Words are assigned to the structure in parallel. Not word by word. The words are available simultaneously and the grammatical role assigns the order.

Flexibility in PlanningCognitive load/Error Avoidance Trade-off

Wagner et al. (2010)

Factors effecting advanced planning:

•Slow speakers tend to plan more than rapid speakers.

•More planning for simple sentences than more complex sentences.

•More planning under low than high cognitive load.

2. The verbal utterance is then generated for a phrase, as a unit.

• process is parallel. • order of words is already established. • order of phonemes is assigned by rules for producing the word sound.If the sounds are planned for the entire phrase this

allows us to co-articulate.

Linearization Problem - getting things in the correct order.

A spoonerism is an error in speech or deliberate play on words in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or

morphemes are switched. "Let us raise our glasses to the queer old

Dean"

Reverend Spooner Oxford University lecturer in history,

philosophy, and divinity (1876 to 1889)

His tendency to get words and sounds crossed up could happen at any time, but especially when he was agitated. He reprimanded one student for "fighting a liar in the quadrangle" and another who "hissed my mystery lecture." To the latter he added in disgust, "You have tasted two worms."

Patriotic fervor excited Spooner as well.

He raised his toast to Her Highness Victoria: "Three cheers for our queer old dean!" 

During WWI he reassured his students,

"When our boys come home from France, we will have the hags flung out." 

He praised Britain's

farmers as "noble tons of soil."

Evidence from Speech Errors

Word Order Errorse.g., “The trophy won the team”, instead of “The team won the trophy”.

Word errors occur at the “functional level”Words with same grammatical function are most likely to be exchanged.In 99% of cases nouns switched with nouns, verbs with verbs but not nouns with verbs (Hotopf, 1980).

Word Exchanges are most likely to occuracross phrases.

Garrett (1980) studied errors in spontaneous speech. -83% of word exchanges occurred across phrase boundaries.Suggests all words are available in parallel but were mapped to the phrase structure incorrectly.

e.g., Target: I must let the cat out of the house. Error: I must let the house out of the cat.

Converting Structure to SoundsGenerating the spoken sentence occurs a phraseat a time.

EvidenceIn spontaneous speech pauses are longer between phases then within them. - pause is used to generate the next phrase.

- when people repeat or correct themselves, they tend to repeat the entire phrase.

Sound (phonemic) Errors: Getting your “Mirds Wixed”Phoneme production errors.

Occur because of mis-timing or mis-orderingof sounds at the second stage.

An unfortunate example from Fox News.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO32SI4CITA

Phonemic Errors occur within phrase boundaries. - can be between words with different grammatical roles. - tend to share the same position in the word (first phoneme for first phonemes).

These errors are at the positional level. Theyoccur in ordering the phonemes.

SummaryIn generating sentences from thoughts, theentire thought is mapped onto a phrasestructure and then the actual verbal utterance is generated phrase by phrase.

What about Freud???

Sigmund Freud, assumed that speech errors are the result of an intrapsychic conflict of concurrent intentions.

“Virtually all speech errors [are] caused by the intrusion of repressed ideas from the unconscious into one’s conscious speech output”.

Experimental speech errors

• Can we examine speech errors in under more controlled conditions?– SLIP technique: speech error elicitation technique

• Motley and Baars (1976)

Task: • Say the words silently as quickly as you can• Say them aloud if you hear a ring

mashed buns

mangy bears

angry insect

ornery fly

bad mug

Experimental Spoonerisms?

• Motley & Baars (1979)

Further support for the Lexical Bias Effect: speech errors form words rather than non-words.

Experimental Freudian slips?

Motley & Baars (1979) Method: 90 males, same procedure previously used by Motley,

1980 (SLIP). 3 Context (Set) Conditions:

“Electricity” - expecting to get shocked “Sex” - researcher provocatively attired female Neutral

Word pairs Same word pairs in all conditions Targets were non-words (e.g. goxi furl foxy girl) preceded by 3

phonologically biasing word pairs not semantically related Half of the potential resulting errors were sexually related (S), some

were electrically related (E) (S) bine foddy -> “fine body” (E) shad bock -> “bad shock”

Experimental Freudian slips?

car tires

Experimental Freudian slips?

cat toys

Experimental Freudian slips?

can tops

Experimental Freudian slips?

cup trays

Experimental Freudian slips?

tool kits

“cool tits”

Experimental Freudian slips?

– Results (number of errors, by type): – Electricity set: 69 E, 31 S

– Sex set: 36 E, 76 S

– Neutral set: 44 E, 41 S

Conclusion: subjects’ speech systems are sensitive to semantic influences from their situational cognitive set.

Experimental Freudian slips?

Motley & Baars (1979)

Why do we say exactly the thing we are trying not to say?

e.g., Students experiencing Success

Spreading activation – we activate the node that we are trying to suppress.

Mixed Error EffectsErrors in which the incorrect word is both semantically and syntactically related to the correct word. Various levels of processing interact (semantic and syntactic).

Target:The flood damage was so bad they had to evacuate the city.Error: The flood damage was so bad they had to evaporate the city.

Individual DifferencesTwo classes of Speech Errors (Dell et al. (1997)

1.Anticipatory - sound or word spoken ahead of time (“The leading list” instead of “The reading list”)

- inefficient planning.

2.Perseveratory – speech sound comes later

( beef needle) – inappropriate monitoring.

Expert speakers plan ahead more and make more anticipatory errors. Evidence – tongue-twister study

Tongue-Twister Study

Practice over-all lead to less errors, however proportion of anticipatory errors increased between early and late practice trails.

Anticipatory errors increase with age.