Conventionalisation and discrimination as competing pressures on continuous speech-like signals

Little, Hannah; Ery?lmaz, Kerem; De Boer, Bart

Abstract

© John Benjamins Publishing Company. Arbitrary communication systems can emerge from iconic beginnings through processes of conventionalisation via interaction. Here, we explore whether this process of conventionalisation occurs with continuous, auditory signals. We conducted an artificial signalling experiment. Participants either created signals for themselves, or for a partner in a communication game. We found no evidence that the speech-like signals in our experiment became less iconic or simpler through interaction. We hypothesise that the reason for our results is that when it is difficult to be iconic initially because of the constraints of the modality, then iconicity needs to emerge to enable grounding before conventionalisation can occur. Further, pressures for discrimination, caused by the expanding meaning space in our study, may cause more complexity to emerge, again as a result of the restrictive signalling modality. Our findings have possible implications for the processes of conventionalisation possible in signed and spoken languages, as the spoken modality is more restrictive than the manual modality.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (published)
• Acceptance Date: Dec 7, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Dec 8, 2017
• Publication Date: Dec 8, 2017
• Deposit Date: Dec 18, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 18, 2017
• Journal: Interaction Studies
• Print ISSN: 1572-0373
• Electronic ISSN: 1572-0381
• Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 18
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 352-375
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/is.18.3.04lit
• Keywords: conventionalisation, iconicity, language evolution, speech, experimental semiotics
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/877748
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/is.18.3.04lit
• Additional Information: Additional Information : This is the accepted version of the article. It is under copyright and the publisher should be contacted for permission to re-use or reprint the material.
• Contract Date: Dec 18, 2017