Reading: Language and Language Use

common ground

set of knowledge that the speaker and listener share and they think, assume, or otherwise take for granted that they share.

audience design

speakers design their utterances for their audiences by taking into account the audiences’ knowledge.

• eg saying ‘my sister"‘ vs elaf based on if the listener knows her

lexicon

words and expressions

how do we achive conversational coordination

using similar lexicon, syntax, speech rate and accent → activate similar situation models

situation models

representations about the topic of a conversation. So, if you are talking about Gary and Mary’s wedding with your friends, you might have a situation model of Gary giving Mary a ring in your mind.

ingroup

the group to which one belongs

outgroup

the groups outside the one you belong to

linguistic intergroup bias

you describe your ingroup with positive adjectives rather than verbs, and your outgroup members than negative adjectives rather than verbs

• ingroup members are typically good, and if they do anything bad, that’s more an exception in special circumstances; in contrast, outgroup members are typically bad, and if they do anything good, that’s more an exception.

sapir whorf hypothesis

the language people use determines their thoughts