Chapter 23 - Perspective Taking and the Coordination of Meaning in Language Use

Abstract

Language use requires coordination to be successful, because language can be ambiguous. Thus, speakers and listeners will often have to adapt their behavior to their interlocutor to avoid misunderstanding. This chapter discusses audience design hypothesis, or the design hypothesis for short. This hypothesis assumes that speakers and listeners achieve success in communication because they maintain detailed models of what the other person knows, and speak and understand against these models. Speakers adapt some aspects of their speech to characteristics of their listeners. Adults often speak to small children using motherese, a form of speech containing exaggerated prosody, a higher pitch, and simplified syntax. Speakers change their speaking register or style depending upon the social identity of their addressees. Casual observation reveals that bilinguals often mix languages when talking to other bilinguals, but tend to use a single language when speaking to monolinguals. And developmental psychologists such as Piaget have observed that the speech of children becomes less egocentric and more listener-centered as they mature.