Overspecification in action-oriented discourse: task importance affects the production of overspecifications and overspecifications increase identification efficiency in perception

Authors

  • Anja Arts Faculty of Humanities, Tilburg University, the Netherlands Author
  • Alfons Maes Faculty of Humanities, Tilburg University, the Netherlands Author
  • Leo Noordman Faculty of Humanities, Tilburg University, the Netherlands Author
  • Carel Jansen Faculty of Arts, Radboud University, the Netherlands Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.36505/ExLing-2008/02/0008/000067

Keywords:

overspecification, instruction, coherence, reference

Abstract

This paper discusses the effect of overspecified reference as a communicative strategy in action-oriented discourse. In a perception and a production experiment, based on identical instructive environments, participants were asked to identify an object after reading a minimally specified or overspecified expression, or to produce a referential expression in a low-importance or a high-importance context. Overspecification shows to be a pervasive instructive production strategy, which mostly affects the addressee’s identification task in a positive way.

References

Ariel, M. 1991. The function of accessibility in a theory of grammar. Journal of Pragmatics 16, 443-463.

Arts, A. 2004. Overspecification in instructive texts. Doctoral dissertation, Tilburg University, the Netherlands.

Clark, H. and Wilkes-Gibbs, D. 1986. Referring as a collaborative process. Cognition 22, 1-39.

Gundel, J., Hedberg, N. and Zacharski, R. 1993. Cognitive status and the form of referring expressions in discourse. Language 69, 274-307.

Maes, A., Arts, A. and Noordman, L. 2004. Reference management in instructive discourse. Discourse Processes 37, 117-144.

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Published

01-01-2008

How to Cite

Overspecification in action-oriented discourse: task importance affects the production of overspecifications and overspecifications increase identification efficiency in perception. (2008). Linguistic Proceedings Series, 2(1), 29-32. https://doi.org/10.36505/ExLing-2008/02/0008/000067

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