Title
Pause Length and Differences in Cognitive State Attribution in Native and Non-Native Speakers
Author
Michael Pleyer
Center for Language Evolution Studies, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń
Author
Przemysław Żywiczyński
Center for Language Evolution Studies, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń
Abstract
Speech pauses between turns of conversations are crucial for assessing conversation partners’ cognitive states, such as their knowledge, confidence and willingness to grant requests; in general, speakers making longer pauses are regarded as less apt and willing. However, it is unclear if the interpretation of pause length is mediated by the accent of interactants, in particular native versus non-native accents. We hypothesized that native listeners are more tolerant towards long pauses made by non-native speakers than those made by native speakers. This is because, in non-native speakers, long pauses might be the result of prolonged cognitive processing when planning an answer in a non-native language rather than of a lack of knowledge, confidence or willingness. Our experiment, in which 100 native Polish-speaking raters rated native and non-native speakers of Polish on their knowledge, confidence and willingness, showed that this hypothesis was confirmed for perceived willingness only; non-native speakers were regarded as equally willing to grant requests, irrespective of their inter-turn pause durations, whereas native speakers making long pauses were regarded as less willing than those making short pauses. For knowledge and confidence, we did not find a mediating effect of accent; both native and non-native speakers were rated as less knowledgeable and confident when making long pauses. One possible reason for the difference between our findings on perceived willingness to grant requests versus perceived knowledge and confidence is that requests might be more socially engaging and more directly relevant for interpersonal cooperative interactions than knowledge that reflects on partners’ competence but not cooperativeness. Overall, our study shows that (non-)native accents can influence which cognitive states are signaled by different pause durations, which may have important implications for intercultural communication settings where topics are negotiated between native and non-native speakers.
Keywords
speech pausesnon-native accentsknowledgeconfidencewillingnesscognitive state attribution
Object type
Language
English [eng]
Persistent identifier
https://phaidra.univie.ac.at/o:1635300
Appeared in
Title
Languages
Volume
8
Issue
1
ISSN
2226-471X
Issued
2023
Publisher
MDPI AG
Date issued
2023
Access rights
Rights statement
© 2023 by the authors
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