Doctoral Dissertation Research: Partner-Specific Alignment at the Lexical and Syntactic Levels in Interactive Dialogue

During conversation, people adjust their speech depending on their conversational partner. Often, speakers align with each other and become more similar in their language patterns. Such alignment is a core feature of human interaction and is believed to occur mostly without conscious awareness. Previous studies have shown that speakers often align on particular word choices with specific conversational partners and switch to a different word choice pattern when communicating with a different partner. In contrast, when speakers align their sentence structure with a particular conversational partner, they tend to maintain that sentence structure choice pattern even when talking to a different partner. This doctoral dissertation project investigates the possible reasons for the differences in partner-specific alignment at the word choice and sentence choice levels. A main hypothesis tested in this research is that word choice and sentence structure choice may serve different functions and may therefore impact communication success differently, especially in the context of joint task performance. This project also provides ample research opportunities for students and aims to increase awareness of alignment as a tool for language educators and speech therapists. This doctoral dissertation project uses openly available analysis tools to examine whether speakers align their word (lexical) and sentence structure (syntactic) choices differently depending on their conversational partner in joint task-related dialogue. Specifically, the researchers compare the speech output of participants working in pairs to complete a collaborative spot-the-differences game, either remaining with the same conversational partner or switching partners between rounds of the game. By comparing the alignment patterns of the same-partner pairs with the different-partner pairs, this study will provide insight into the mechanisms and functionality of alignment at different levels of language. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.