Étudier la conversation pour mieux comprendre le langage

Abstract

This chapter deals with the linguistic manifestations of conversation. For a long time, linguists have been interested in the levels of oral language (phonology, lexicon, syntax, discourse) separately, particularly based on prepared and non-interactive speech corpora. Research on conversational speech highlights what modern linguistic theories seek to integrate: the interdependence of these dimensions. Moreover, beyond the description of variants, this work allows us to study in a specific way the processes of language production and comprehension, including by considering them jointly, by relying on the most recent theories of interaction.In this chapter, we propose to first discuss the particularities of conversational language and their impact on the units and phenomena generally studied by linguists: phonemes, morphemes, syntagms, prosodic units, propositions, discourse units. These particularities stem from common parameters to most conversational communication situations: temporal pressure, co-presence of participants, fleeting nature of these conversational productions whose form is forgotten as soon as the message has been transmitted. Temporal pressure provides strong characteristics to conversational language linked to time management (lexical and phonetic reductions, disfluencies, etc.). The transience of productions allows the use of particular strategies (repetitions, redundancies, reformulations) which are generally avoided in other language uses. Finally, co-presence allows the use of all the modalities involved in an interaction, and on which the multiple mechanisms of alignment between participants are based. Moreover, the study of these particularities is profoundly impacted by the notions of context and shared knowledge that underlie an interaction. All these particularities due to conversational language suggest adjustments at all levels of production, but in a specific way for each of them. These adjustments are not always described at each level, but even more so, they are rarely analysed together. An important point is to put into perspective the different types of linguistic modifications linked to conversation.Moreover, understanding these general issues requires a precise description of conversation phenomena (cf. conversational analysis and interactional linguistics). These phenomena include turns of speech, listening signals and conversational feedback, or co-produced utterances.These specific phenomena of conversation must be put into perspective with the question of the interaction existing between units. We know, for example, that phonetic reductions more specifically affect sequences with a low semantic and informational load. It is therefore necessary to describe the conditions under which these interactions are possible. In particular, it is necessary to explain them by putting them in perspective with the question of comprehension.The participants in a conversation seek to achieve goals that are external to the communicative activity, but which involve the achievement of these participants’ communicative goals. In order to achieve these goals, the participants must articulate informative elements through the traditionally studied structures of language which allow the construction and articulation of representations. Conversation is a privileged place to observe these phenomena. Interactions between participants are generally built on an exchange of information. This is not a fixed mechanism as linguistics has long explained. It can be based on very superficial processing during which each participant produces and perceives bits of information. The way in which these are aggregated during a conversation is probably not always based on a compositional process, but rather consists in allowing all participants to construct a shared body of knowledge. In this chapter, we will describe the observable evidence of this mechanism, addressing in particular the question of the alignment of linguistic units that we observe during a conversation. This approach to interaction provides a theoretical framework for explaining the conversational phenomena mentioned above.This chapter will be structured as follows: 1/ conversation will be discussed as the articulation between representation and communication through language as a social action; 2/ a second part will aim at drawing up an inventory of the “traces” of the activity of conversation (communicative goal, temporal pressure, co-presence, cognitive load, social pressure) on the different linguistic units (phonemes, lexicon, syntax, prosody); 3/ we will then address the phenomena specific to conversation which are not identifiable in other types of speech (speech turns, disfluencies, conversational feedback, co-produced utterances, non-phrastic utterances, non-lexical utterances, etc.)); 4/ we will finally develop some perspectives related to all these works.

Keywords

• conversation
• feedbacks
• reductions
• disfluences
• alignement
• interaction