Language specific constraints on conversation: Evidence from Danish and Norwegian

Abstract

Establishing and maintaining mutual understanding in everyday conversations is crucial. To do so people employ a variety of conversational devices, such as backchannels, repair and linguistic entrainment. Here we explore whether speakers of different languages use conversational devices in the same way, or whether their use might be modulated by differences in properties of the languages. We compare two unusually well-matched languages (Danish and Norwegian) differing in their sound structure: Danish is more opaque due to, e.g., phonetic reduction in pronunciation. Across systematically manipulated conversational contexts, we find that processes supporting mutual understanding in conversations vary with external constraints: across different contexts, and, crucially, across languages. According to our predictions, linguistic entrainment was overall higher in Danish than Norwegian, while backchannels and repairs presented a more nuanced pattern. These findings suggest that native speakers of Danish compensate for the opaque sound structure by adopting a top-down strategy of building more conversational redundancy through entrainment, which also reduces the need for repairs. By creating a context in which linguistic items and structures are continuously repeated, native speakers of Danish might be bypassing the challenges posed by their pronounced phonetic reduction. These results suggest that linguistic differences might give rise to systematic changes in language processing and use and pave the way for larger cross-linguistic investigations. The findings are highly relevant for the study of conversational exchanges in many applied domains, from the design of language-based human-computer interfaces to the development of measures of social functioning in neuropsychiatric conditions.