When using a referring expression, the aim of a speaker is often to identify an intended referent. Such a task of referent identification is further complicated when the intended referent forms part of a group of similar “potential referents” (Brown, 1995, p. 135). It then becomes part of the task to achieve the distinction of the intended from other, similar referents. In interactive, cooperative communication, speakers align their linguistic representations in order to facilitate referential processes (Pickering & Garrod, 2004). The aim of this paper is to explore how alignment is achieved when speaker need to distinguish between similar referents, and specifically, how noun phrase modification factors into speaker’s behaviour.

         The exploration of alignment of linguistic representations is studied within an interactive, collaborative map task (Zipp & Staicov, 2016), where the main goal is for a Speaker 1 to communicate a route drawn on a map to a Speaker 2, whose map does not have the route indicated.

         Following Pickering and Garrod’s (2004) predictions, participants indeed align and simplify the referential expressions they use to distinguish between potential referents. Specifically, the modifying elements within the referential noun phrases are coordinated between speakers in the identification of the intended reference, as in (1). The modifying elements may take on an even more central role in speaker alignment, where referring expressions may be reduced to those modifiers, as (2) shows. Such shortened references are commonly observed in studies on linguistic alignment (e.g. Clark & Wilkes-Gibbs, 1986; Brennan & Clark, 1996; Van Der Wege, 2009; Van Deemter et al., 2012)

​

(1) Speaker 2:     Is it the white trees or ...?

     Speaker 1: . In front of . Make a counter-clockwise circle around .

     Speaker 2: . Right now I'm ...

(2) Speaker 2:     I’m right in front of the white trees and under is the one single Christmas                          tree. (…)

     Speaker 1: You’re between and , right?

​

         This paper explores the use of modifying elements in noun phrases as used for reference identification within a contrast set. It argues that as speakers aim to align their linguistic representations in a reference task, modifiers play a central role in alignment; they may be observed as coordinated, repeated elements (1), or references may even be shortened to include only the modifiers.

 

Brennan, S. E., & Clark, H. H. (1996). Conceptual pacts and lexical choice in conversation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 22(6), 1482–1493.

Brown, G. (1995). Speakers, Listeners and Communication: Explorations in Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Clark, H. H., & Wilkes-Gibbs, D. (1986). Referring as a collaborative process. Cognition, 22, 1–39.

Pickering, M. J., & Garrod, S. (2004). Toward a mechanistic psychology of dialogue. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 27, 169–226.

Van Deemter, K., Gatt, A., van Gompel, R. P. G., & Krahmer, E. (2012). Towards a computational psycholiguistics of reference production. Topics in Cognitive Science, 4, 166–183.

Van Der Wege, M. M. (2009). Lexical entrainment and lexical differentiation in reference phrase choice. Journal of Memory and Language, 60, 448–463.

Zipp, L., & Staicov, A. (2016). English in San Francisco Chinatown: Indexing identity with speech rhythm? In E. Seoane & C. Suárez-Gómez (Eds.), World Englishes: New Theoretical and Methodological Considerations (pp. 205­­–228). Amsterdam: Benjamins.