Structural convergence in spoken English discourse

Abstract

This study extends the logic of prior studies showing phonetic convergence between interlocutors to the structural domain. We ask whether listeners’ adaptation of the syntactic forms they produce depends on how they perceive their interlocutor on measures of interpersonal similarity. Structural priming was used to assess the extent to which interlocutor characteristics influence structural convergence in dialogues between native speakers of different varieties of British English (Lancashire and South-East). Our findings suggest that structural priming is mediated by a speaker’s perception of their similarity to their interlocutor, as assessed based on sociolinguistic cues.