Cognitive factors in bilingual lexical alignment

University Of Texas At El Paso, El Paso TX

Investigators

Abstract

People in conversation sometimes copy the language of their conversation partners, reusing each other’s words. This phenomenon, known as lexical alignment, benefits communication: It helps people understand each other better, like each other more, and may lead to faster learning. Because of such benefits, trainable conversational strategies involving alignment could potentially be developed to improve communication (e.g., in clinical or legal settings or between human and artificial conversational agents), rapport, and learning. However, the possibilities for alignment may vary when conversation partners have different levels of proficiency with the language being used. This project aims to understand the basis for lexical alignment in bilingual speakers (Spanish/English). The research will be conducted at a Hispanic-Serving Institution and will increase diversity in research by including first-generation university students and students from groups underrepresented in science, both as participants and as trainees. Lexical alignment in bilingual participants will be studied using a picture-matching game in Spanish that consists of two interactive tasks. While one participant names black-and-white line drawings of common objects, animals, and human professions, the other participant arranges the drawings in the same order in which the other person has named them. Participants then switch roles with their partner. Unbeknownst to participants, one partner is a confederate who names a subset of the drawings with one of two possible names. The investigators will examine alignment rates and production speed of the naive participant as a function of his or her Spanish proficiency and the frequency with which the word occurs in the language. The direction and degree of interaction of alignment and response speed with proficiency and word frequency will adjudicate among completing theories of the cognitive mechanisms that underlie lexical alignment. Ultimately, the results will contribute to better understanding of the potential for targeted use of lexical alignment training to improve communication and learning in clinical, legal and educational settings. 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.