Context, precision, and social perception: A sociopragmatic study

Abstract

In two perception experiments we explore the social indexicality of numerical expressions, comparing the evaluation of three variants: precise (e.g. ‘forty-nine minutes’) vs. explicitly approximate (e.g. ‘about fifty minutes’) vs. underspecified (e.g. ‘fifty minutes’). We ask two questions: (i) What constellations of social meanings are associated with each of these variants? (ii) How are such indexical associations modulated by the conversational setting? We find that the choice of approximate vs. precise forms differentially impact speaker evaluation along the social dimensions of Status, Solidarity, and anti-Solidarity, with underspecified numbers showing a flexible behavior. Furthermore, these associations are to some extent affected by the conversational setting, in particular the demands on descriptive precision placed by the context and the interlocutors’ goals. These findings reveal an intimate connection between pragmatic reasoning and social perception, highlighting the importance of integrating pragmatic theory in the study of social indexicality. (Social meaning, pragmatic variation, social perception, numerals, (im)precision)*

(Im)precise personae: The effect of socio-indexical information on semantic interpretation

“…As discussed in §1, scholars of language across different traditions have long submitted to the view that communication simultaneously involves referential and indexical signs, "one working in conjunction with the other" (Gumperz & Cook-Gumperz 2007); and that the interpretation of descriptive meaning cannot be conceived of independently of the social context (Silverstein 1985;Ochs 1992;Eckert 2019;Cook-Gumperz 1992). In a similar vein, a recent line of work at the interface of pragmatics and sociolinguistics showed that social meanings are productively and systematically inferred from the semantic properties of speech across a variety of linguistic expressions (Acton & Potts 2014;Acton 2019;Beltrama & Staum Casasanto 2017;Beltrama et al 2022;Glass 2015;Jeong 2021;Hunt & Acton 2022; see §1 for further details), motivating a view in which different dimensions of meaning cannot be seen as independent from one another. Against this background, the persona effects observed in our study make it possible to take a further step towards building a bridge between sociolinguistic and more abstract, reference-oriented approaches to the study of meaning, questioning the exclusion of identity considerations from pragmatic reasoning that has been tacitly advocated in much work in semantics and analytic philosophy.…”

“…The second property is that variation in precision is socially meaningful. In particular, speakers using sharp numbers (e.g., 203) -normally taken to signal a high level of precision -are perceived as embodying social qualities pertaining to high status and intellectual standing -e.g., being articulate, intelligent, educated, hard-working -as well as low solidarity and likabilitye.g., annoying, pedantic, obsessive, and uptight; conversely, speakers using numerals in an explicitly imprecise fashion (i.e., "approximately 200") have been shown to be perceived as embodying opposite sets of qualities -e.g., likable, laid-back, friendly-and in a way that is remarkably robust across conversational contexts (Beltrama 2018;Beltrama et al 2022). This suggests that different levels of precision are taken by comprehenders to index distinct constellations of socio-indexical information, similar to what happens with countless other examples of linguistic variation.…”

Situating language register across the ages, languages, modalities, and cultural aspects: Evidence from complementary methods

“…Project A05 complements these studies on the effects of speaker role with studies on how the choice of precision level in context affects perceptions of the speaker (Beltrama et al, 2022 ). In a series of internet-based studies, we extend the matched guise technique (Campbell-Kibler, 2010 ; Beltrama, 2018 ) to the investigation of register, by varying not only the linguistic forms tested (e.g., the trip to the airport takes 49/50/about 50 min) but also the situational contexts in which they are used.…”

Social identity, precision and charity: when less precise speakers are held to stricter standard

“…On the one hand, it has been shown that listeners reason rely on precision as a cue to draw social inferences about speaker. For example, speakers using sharp numbers (e.g., "207") -normally taken to signal a high level of precision (Krifka 2007) -are associated with a cluster of social qualities that can be traced back to two core dimensions of social evaluation: high intellectual status -e.g., as articulate, educated, intelligent; and low sociability -e.g., as annoying, pedantic, obsessive (Beltrama 2018;Beltrama, Solt & Burnett 2022). 3 Similarly, speakers using numerals in an explicitly imprecise fashion (i.e., "around 200") are perceived as embodying opposite sets of qualities -e.g., as friendlier and more laid-back, but less intelligent and educated (Beltrama et al 2022).…”

“…For example, speakers using sharp numbers (e.g., "207") -normally taken to signal a high level of precision (Krifka 2007) -are associated with a cluster of social qualities that can be traced back to two core dimensions of social evaluation: high intellectual status -e.g., as articulate, educated, intelligent; and low sociability -e.g., as annoying, pedantic, obsessive (Beltrama 2018;Beltrama, Solt & Burnett 2022). 3 Similarly, speakers using numerals in an explicitly imprecise fashion (i.e., "around 200") are perceived as embodying opposite sets of qualities -e.g., as friendlier and more laid-back, but less intelligent and educated (Beltrama et al 2022). On the other hand, and more centrally for our purposes, it's been shown that the social information available in the context affects the computation of the level of precision with which a numeral is interpreted.…”