APVV
Project Number
APVV-23-0223
Project Duration
09/2024-06/2028
Principal Investigator
Project Annotation
Spoken interactions taking place in English as a non-native (L2) language are becoming a prevalent mode of dialogue in many spheres of professional discourse. Previous studies show that alignment among interlocutors during L1 interactions, i.e. their tendency to adjust their speaking behaviour to the interlocutor, correlates with multiple positive social aspects linked to the success of the interaction, rapport and engagement of the speakers, or their mutual evaluations in trust, attractiveness, or competence. Yet, due to the inherently complex nature of alignment stemming from multiple, potentially inter-relating factors affecting alignment, our understanding of the cognitive mechanisms and potential applicability in a language learning environment is limited. The proposed research aims at improving our understanding of key factors affecting alignment, such as the effect of native (L1) vs. non-native (L2) language, the relationship between non-verbal (e.g. intonation, speech rate) and verbal (syntactic structure, lexical choices) aspects of spoken interactions, the degree of L2 proficiency of the interlocutors, or their emotional and social state. Knowledge gained from a better understanding of the relationships between these factors and interpersonal alignment strategies generates testable predictions and hypotheses for applied research in which intervention approaches facilitating alignment might be proposed and tested for their hypothesized positive effect on the communicative competence in L2 interactions in both educational and professional settings. We aim to gain this knowledge by 1) creating a spoken corpus of semi-spontaneous dialogues in both L1 and L2 with a novel design varying the factors mentioned above, and 2) subsequently analysing the alignment strategies and the effect of these factors on the alignment behaviour of the interlocutors in the corpus.
Research Team
doc. PhDr. Viktor Gatial, PhD.