Language is universal, but it has few indisputably universal characteristics, with cross-linguistic variation being the norm. For example, languages differ greatly in the number of syllables they allow, resulting in large variation in the Shannon information per syllable. Nevertheless, all natural languages allow their speakers to efficiently encode and transmit information. We show here, using quantitative methods on a large cross-linguistic corpus of 17 languages, that the coupling between language-level (information per syllable) and speaker-level (speech rate) properties results in languages encoding similar information rates (~39 bits/s) despite wide differences in each property individually: Languages are more similar in information rates than in Shannon information or speech rate. These findings highlight the intimate feedback loops between languages' structural properties and their speakers' neurocognition and biology under communicative pressures. Thus, language is the product of a multiscale communicative niche construction process at the intersection of biology, environment, and culture.

Different languages, similar encoding efficiency: Comparable information rates across the human communicative niche.

http://kinderlab.bcs.rochester.edu/papers/KurumadaJaeger2015.pdf

Communicative efficiency in language production: Optional case-marking in Japanese

Structure in talker-specific phonetic realization: Covariation of stop consonant VOT in American English

Dynamically adapted context-specific hyper-articulation: Feedback from interlocutors affects speakers' subsequent pronunciations.

When we interact with one another, we tend to align our behaviors, including the way we talk. Psycholinguistic work has conceptualized alignment as the result of automatic cognitive mechanisms that operate to facilitate processing and communication. Sociolinguistic work has focused on the role of social identity and interactional strategy in explaining linguistic alignment. We draw on these two largely distinct traditions to investigate socially mediated syntactic alignment with the goal of understanding how social perception and cognition influence the mechanisms involved in alignment. A novel web-based paradigm was employed to collect speech data from a large socially heterogeneous sample. Participants listened to one of three speakers, each with a different accent, deliver an ideologically charged diatribe. Participants then completed a picture description task to assess the degree of syntactic alignment. Finally, participants completed a comprehensive social questionnaire designed to assess a wide range of social dimensions, which were tested as predictors of alignment. Our results suggest that syntactic alignment is to some extent automatic, but socially mediated. We found an overall alignment effect across social conditions and independent of social perceptions. However, the degree of alignment was influenced by a number of factors, including the perceived standardness of the passage speaker's accent, participants' perceived similarity to the speaker, and participants' preference for compromise as a conflict management style. These findings are discussed in terms of theories of linguistic alignment and speech production.

Socially-mediated syntactic alignment

Signal Reduction and Linguistic Encoding

The number of phonological neighbors to a word (PND) can affect its lexical planning and pronunciation. Similar parallel effects on planning and articulation have been observed for other lexical variables, such as a word's contextual predictability. Such parallelism is frequently taken to indicate that effects on articulation are mediated by effects on the time course of lexical planning. We test this mediation assumption for PND and find it unsupported. In a picture naming experiment, we measure speech onset latencies (planning), word durations, and vowel dispersion (articulation). We find that PND predicts both latencies and durations. Further, latencies predict durations. However, the effects of PND and latency on duration are independent: parallel effects do not imply mediation. We discuss the consequences for accounts of lexical planning, articulation, and the link between them. In particular, our results suggest that ease of planning does not explain effects of PND on articulation.

/pdf/the-in-dependence-of-articulation-and-lexical-planning-2baohca9vj.pdf

The (in)dependence of articulation and lexical planning during isolated word production.

This study investigates the capacity for targeted hyperarticulation of contextually-relevant contrasts. Participants communicated target words with final /s/ or /z/ when a voicing minimal-pair (e.g., target dose, minimal-pair doze) either was or was not available as an alternative in the context. The results indicate that talkers enhance the durational cues associated with the word-final voicing contrast based on whether the context requires it, and that this can involve both elongation as well as shortening, depending on what enhances the contextually-relevant contrast. This suggests that talkers are capable of targeted, context-sensitive temporal enhancements.

/pdf/dynamic-hyperarticulation-of-coda-voicing-contrasts-3acwwamje5.pdf

Dynamic hyperarticulation of coda voicing contrasts.

https://escholarship.org/content/qt7ph8539f/qt7ph8539f.pdf

Esteban Buz

Papers

Dynamically adapted context-specific hyper-articulation: Feedback from interlocutors affects speakers' subsequent pronunciations.

Signal Reduction and Linguistic Encoding

The (in)dependence of articulation and lexical planning during isolated word production.

Dynamic hyperarticulation of coda voicing contrasts.

Contextual confusability leads to targeted hyperarticulation