The prevalence of repair in studies of language evolution

Abstract

While studies of language evolution have themselves evolved to include interaction as a feature of interest (Healey et al, 2007;Tamariz et al, 2017;Fay et al, 2017; Byun et al, in press), many still fail to consider just what interaction offers emerging communication systems. That is, while it's been acknowledged that face-to-face interaction in communication games is beneficial in its approximation of natural language use (Macuch Silva & Roberts, 2016;Nölle et al, 2017), there remains a lack of detailed analysis of what this type of interaction affords participants, and how those affordances impact the evolving language. To this end, here we will expose one particular process that occurs in interaction: repair, or the processes by which we can indicate misunderstanding and resolve problems in communication (Schegloff, Jefferson, & Sacks, 1977;Jefferson, 1972). Though it is often not explicitly analyzed, repair is a relevant aspect of interaction to consider for its effects on the evolution of a communication system as well as how it demonstrates the moment-to-moment processing and negotiation of alignment in emerging communication.We present data from various studies of language evolution in which we document how repair is carried out, the types of repair present, and their effect on novel signaling. All studies in this collection utilized referential communication tasks -some iterated over simulated generations and other repeating interactions between two individuals. However, they differ in modality (of stimuli and communication). The data collection includes: silent gesture communication of written nouns and verbs; non-linguistic vocalizations and This paper is distributed under a Creative Commons CC-BY-ND license.

Multimodality and the origin of a novel communication system in face-to-face interaction

“…Trials with responses from the matcher were not more likely to be correct and tended to be longer, but they were associated with greater accuracy in subsequent trials. This is in line with a metaanalysis which finds that initiating repair in experimental communication games leads to increased efficiency and accuracy because it enhances the conceptual alignment between participants [116], and analyses of the importance of repair in 'cross-signing' between signers who have no sign language in common [122]. This could be due to better alignment on the signal for the target meaning or (because the matcher must make a forced choice) due to better alignment on the distinctions between the different meanings.…”

“…We discuss possible reasons for this below. Table 3 shows what kinds of repair matchers produced (data from a meta-study by Micklos et al [116]). There are examples of each type of repair, though open and restricted are the most frequent types.…”

“…The third observation relates to participants in the vocal-only condition. There was almost no interaction in this condition (there was only one trial where the matcher responded), perhaps due to the lack of direct visual contact in this condition which prevented the transmission of facial and gestural cues of communication problems (Micklos et al [116] also find fewer repairs in these kinds of experiments when participants are not face-to-face). Instead, the director would produce a vocalization and the matcher would make a guess without attempting to elicit more help.…”

“…Many models of the emergence of linguistic conventions provide very minimal possibilities for interaction (e.g. [89,90]; see [115,116]). In an experiment with free faceto-face interaction, participants have the option to take time to seek further clarification.…”

Cognitive and Interactive Mechanisms for Mutual Understanding in Conversation

“…This finding, though, reflects the nature of repair in natural conversations; repair is a mechanism to facilitate mutual understanding, not an guarantor of it. In fact, the presence of repair is itself a signal of troublesome referencing (Micklos et al, 2020), and early repair in particular might facilitate accuracy in later turns (Micklos et al, 2018). However, the communicative efficiency of signals, on the other hand, is supported by repair in iterated communication games.…”