How egocentric is language production? Evidence from discourse marker use under cognitive load

Details

Supervisors

Degand, Liesbeth

Faculty

Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres

Degree label

Master [120] en linguistique

Abstract

Language has often described as produced ‘for the hearer’. A case in point is the study of discourse markers, often presented as devices that ‘provide instructions to the hearer’ (Hansen, 2006: 25). Psycholinguistic research showing that speakers demonstrate egocentric behavior when their cognitive load increases (e.g. Keysar et al. 1998, Roßnagel 2000, Vogels et al. 2015) suggests that this lack of consideration for the role played by the speaker leaves us with an incomplete account of language production. To assess whether speakers use DMs with a communicative intention, this thesis reports on two experiments investigating the impact of speaker orientation (allocentric vs. egocentric) and cognitive load on the use of discourse markers by 24 participants. Because DMs are a highly pervasive phenomenon, the assumption is that they can provide useful insights into the inherent aspects of language use. In experiment 1, participants took part in a collaborative puzzle solving task where their addressee’s perspective differed from their own. In experiment 2, they had to recount how to assemble the puzzle in a recording to themselves. Cognitive load was manipulated by the absence or presence of a dual task in experiment 1, and by having participants recall instructions from memory in experiment 2. The results show that DM use varies across speaking tasks in terms of frequency, diversity and functional distribution, leading to the identification of potential speaker- and hearer-oriented uses that seem to play a competing role. However, the data suggest that higher memory demands do not substantially affect the production of DMs. These findings are taken as evidence against the hypothesis of an egocentric bias in language production, and in favor of a more central role played by speakers in shaping language form than previously thought.