Tuesday 9th December 11.30am, DSB 1.17

Ashley Micklos (UCLA)

Interaction’s role in emerging communication systems and their conventionalization: Eye gaze, turn-taking, and repair

When considering the emergence and evolution of language, it is important not to disregard how we use language: in a dynamic interaction in which resources work in concert with one another to make complex communication possible. The data and research presented here address the nature and role of discourse features, namely repair, eye gaze, and turn-taking, in an experimental language evolution setting. Thus, we see how an emerging silent gesture system is negotiated, changed, and conventionalized in a dyadic interaction. Using a conversation analytic approach, we can glean how communicative devices themselves emerge and evolve within a language system. For example, the strategies for and frequency of repair may be indicative of the stage of evolution/conventionalization of a given language system. These features are essential to natural conversation, and the data suggest they may also be culturally transmitted.

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