Language Sciences最新文献

What happens when a social robot attempts to accommodate its communicative behavior towards the human interlocutor? The present experiment seeks to expand understanding of how people evaluate social robots when they (the social robots) engage in cases of over- and under-accommodation during interactions. Additionally, the current study partially replicates and extends earlier work examining nonaccommodation. Results indicated that some relationships between the stereotype content model (warmth and competence) were mediated by perceived accommodation for the evaluation outcomes. Moreover, the social robot in the overaccommodative communication condition was evaluated more positively than the social robot in the underaccommodative communication condition. As such, it is better for a social robot to be considered overaccommodative than underaccommodative.

This study investigates the relationship between interability communication (i.e., communication frequency and identity accommodation) and interability attitudes and disability stereotyping through intergroup anxiety and whether the relationship varies with disability salience. Results indicated that participants’ report of communication frequency with their disability-contact had a significant direct effect on the dependent variables (i.e., interability attitudes and disability stereotyping). Moderated mediation results revealed that when salience was low, communication frequency enhanced positive interability attitudes and reduced disability stereotyping through reduced anxiety. Additionally, perceptions of identity accommodation were positively associated with interability attitudes. However, when salience was moderate and high, identity accommodation reduced positive interability attitudes and elevated negative disability stereotyping through an increase in intergroup anxiety. Discussion focuses on the complementary nature of communication accommodation and intergroup contact theories, and thus illustrates the complex role played by identity accommodation in the interability context.

This study examines participants’ vocal accommodation toward text-to-speech (TTS) voices produced by three devices, varying in the extent to which they embody a human form. Thirty eight speakers shadowed words produced by a male and female TTS voice presented across three physical forms: an Amazon Echo smart speaker (least human-like), Nao robot (slightly more human-like), and a Furhat robot (more human-like). Ninety-six independent raters completed a separate AXB perceptual similarity assessment, which provides a holistic evaluation of accommodation. Results show convergence to the voices across all physical forms; convergence is even stronger toward the female TTS voice when presented with the Echo smart speaker form in the female TTS voice, consistent with participants' higher rated likability and lower creepiness of the Echo. We interpret our findings through the lens of communication accommodation theory (CAT), providing support for accounts of speech communication and human–computer interaction frameworks.

This Special Issue commemorates the 50th anniversary of communication accommodation theory (CAT) in 2023, formerly known as speech accommodation theory. This article reflects on the diversity of CAT research as seen in recent studies (2021–2023) as well as the empirical papers to follow in this Special Issue. It provides an overview of CAT's history by reference to previously suggested stages in the evolution of research, with many updates to stages therein, demonstrating the theory's cross-disciplinary influences across many applied social contexts, diverse social groups, languages and cultures, and other communicative features. Next, we overview burgeoning recent research in computer-mediated and human-machine interactions that leads to the identification of a seventh stage of CAT and an agenda of research questions for future work suggested by it. In conclusion, we propose a refined and expanded set of Principles of Accommodation.

This experiment examines whether exposure to outgroup members' self-presentation on Facebook and ingroup members' accommodative versus nonaccommodative responses influence perceptions of outgroup members' social attractiveness and attitudes toward the target outgroup. U.S. college students (N = 865) saw one of four fictitious Facebook pages with wall posts representing a Chinese international student's self-presentation (positive vs. negative) and the student's U.S. Facebook friends' response (accommodative vs. nonaccommodative). The Chinese international student's U.S. Facebook friends were ingroup members with respect to the U.S. college student participants. Participants who viewed outgroup members with positive (compared to negative) self-presentation and ingroup accommodation (compared to nonaccommodation) perceived the outgroup target as more socially attractive. Perceptions of the outgroup target generalized to both affective and behavioral attitudes toward the Chinese outgroup. However, direct effects in our mediated model yielded some complex effects wherein negative self-presentation and communication partner nonaccommodation yielded more positive attitudinal effects. We discuss these findings in terms of the complex dynamics of intergroup accommodation in the online space.

Communication accommodation theory (CAT) has shown remarkable staying power. To what can we attribute this? I suggest several reasons: first, the general phenomenon of accommodation has been long recognised by researchers and skilled practitioners of language, hence a systematic approach predicated on clear principles and experimental methods was attractive to the fields of linguistics, social psychology of language and communication. Second, CAT researchers have adopted a syncretic approach to changes in focus and methods, building on and not rejecting previous stages of CAT. Third, CAT has proven amenable to both qualitative and quantitative methods. This last attribute has, I suggest, enabled it to be incorporated into sociolinguistic research on perception. I conclude with some reflections on how the social psychology of language and sociolinguistics differ in their objects of enquiry, and I look ahead to possible areas of synergies between the fields based on principles of accommodation theory.

Language development is subject to its interaction and alignment with environments. However, how it interacts and aligns with environments necessitates further research, given current incompatible views and findings on language–context relations, particularly marker–context relations in multimodal or second language's (L2) sustainable development. Thus, this article proposes from the Ecolinguistic Continuum (Xiao, 2021) perspective a multidimensional alignment sustainability model (MASM) verified via instantiating a semio-semantic and semio-pragmatic marker continuum in the first language (L1, Chinese) and examining L1 (English) and L2 (English) written and spoken corpora-driven data. Results showed (1) a semio-semantic and semio-pragmatic marker continuum in both languages, ranging/evolving from the conceptually rich/explicit/formal to the partly conceptual/neutral, finally to the conceptually empty/implicit/informal, a process of uni-bi-multi-functions or grammaticalization-semio-pragmaticalization, and (2) the dis/similarities between L1 and L2 marker use distributions, pinpointing the multidimensional niches for languages' sustainable alignment evolvement/development. The findings corroborate the Ecolinguistic Continuum Paradigm, particularly the MASM, indicating that ideational/referential, structural, interpersonal, cognitive, and psychological functions/meanings of markers emerge dynamically depending on the extent to which they align with their corresponding environments. This view extends previous one-dimensional linguistic and context-related studies and helps unravel the problems in L1 and L2 sustainability development.

There is a growing consensus among applied linguists from the Global South that orthodox linguistic and applied linguistic paradigms, theoretical frameworks and methodologies do not adequately serve these contexts. As a result, there has been an increase in interest in challenging Global North paradigms, theoretical perspectives and methodologies. In line with these concerns, in this critical reflective paper, I interrogate the notion of cross-linguistic transfer, which remains popular in some studies on language and literacy learning and teaching in linguistically and culturally complex Global South contexts, including the South African context. Using two studies drawn from two complex multilingual South African universities as illustrative cases (Dyers and Antia, 2019; Makalela, 2014), and framing these studies from a decolonial lens and a translanguaging perspective, I show that the concept of cross-linguistic transfer is problematic because it fails to capture a range of the communicative repertoires, both linguistic and non-linguistic, of multilingual students in these universities, and by extension, in similar contexts. I also contend that the notion of “transfer” in cross-linguistic transfer undermines the multidimensional interdependence of communicative resources of multilingual users. Following this critical analysis, I call for the reconceptualization of cross-linguistic transfer, arguing that this conceptual vocabulary is not consistent with the ontological realities and epistemological perspectives of multilingual students in a complex multilingual South African context. I conclude the paper by briefly discussing the implications of the reconceptualization of cross-linguistic transfer for multilingual educational settings and language and literacy research in the geographic African context, in general, and the South African context, in particular.

Hierarchy has been described as the backbone of a language system. However, how language evolves as a multi-level system has not been explored quantitatively based on authentic language materials. The Menzerath–Altmann law (MAL) is a statistical linguistic universal that can capture the complex relationships between language units at neighboring levels. Using the MAL, the present study explored the evolution of two regularly examined partial hierarchies in written Chinese, i.e., “clause-word-character” and “sentence-clause-word” across five periods of two millennia. The results indicate that the hierarchy in the Pre-Qin Period (Period 1) is quite different from the others since its linguistic units of character and word overlap to some extent. The two partial hierarchies show opposite evolutionary trends in the following four periods. The hierarchy fades at the “clause-word-character” levels. Nevertheless, it increases significantly at the “sentence-clause-word” levels. The evolutions are accompanied by a constant increase in word length and accelerated growth in clause length and sentence length/complexity. The findings are finally explained from the perspective of the Complex Adaptive System (CAS) theory.