Resonance as an Applied Predictor of Cross-Cultural Interaction: Constructional Priming in Mandarin and American English Interaction

Abstract

In Dialogic syntax (cf. Du Bois 2014; Tantucci et al. 2018), naturalistic interaction is inherently grounded in resonance, viz. the catalytic activation of affinities across turns (Du Bois and Giora 2014). Resonance occurs dynamically when interlocutors creatively coconstruct utterances that are formally and phonetically similar to the utterance of a prior speaker. In this study, we argue that such similarity can inform the machine learning prediction of linguistic and cross-cultural diversity. We compared two sets of 1,000 exchanges involving (dis)-agreement from the two balanced Callhome corpora of naturalistic interaction in Mandarin Chinese and American English. We found a correlation of overt use of pragmatic markers with resonance, indicating that priming does not occur as an exclusively implicit mechanism (as it is commonly held in the experimental literature e.g. Bock 1986; Bock et al. 2007), but naturalistically underpins dialogic engagement and cooperation among interactants. We fitted a mixed effects linear regression and a hierarchical clustering model to show that resonance occurs formally and functionally in different ways from one language to another. The applied results of this study can lead to a novel turn in AI research of conversational interfaces (McTear et al. 2016; Klopfenstein et al. 2017), as they reveal the fundamental role played cross-linguistically by resonance as a form of engagement of human-to-human interaction and the importance to address this mechanism in machine-to-human communication.

Lesser relevance markers in Chinese academic spoken English corpus: a cross-disciplinary study on pragmatic features

“…Through this comparison, the study emphasizes the salient differences in audience engagement and linguistic choices based on discourse type, underscoring the importance of audience awareness in spoken interactions. Tantucci and Wang (2022) , in contrast, explored conversations in Mandarin Chinese and American English, establishing a clear correlation between discourse markers and alignment. Their findings not only emphasize the pivotal role of alignment in interactive dialogs but also suggest potential avenues for technological advancements, particularly in the realm of human–machine interactions.…”

A Study on the Enhancement of English Proficiency of Contemporary College Students by Intercultural Communication in the Background of the Internet

“…Through the practice of intercultural communication education, students can acquire the ability to communicate effectively in intercultural communication situations by comparing the differences between different cultures and acquiring the key skills needed in professional and specialized international communication activities [3]. In this regard, English education regulators and schools can take a series of measures, including defining the goals of English education, improving the content of English education, creating English intelligence scenarios, optimizing the second language curriculum, etc., to cultivate the students' cross-cultural communication skills, so that they can grow up to be English-speaking talents with a broad international outlook [4].…”

Predicting Change in Emotion through Ordinal Patterns and Simple Symbolic Expressions

“…Human social relations are formed through interactions that are mostly grounded in natural language [1][2][3]. Researchers focusing on language use [1,4] have repeatedly pointed to the way interlocutors in a conversation invest effort in coordinating their use of language, a process discussed under various names, from "resonance" [5,6] to "synchronization" [7].…”