The development of communicative competence

Spring 2024: CHDV 38950, PSYC 38960, LING 38951, EDSO 38950

Tuesdays and Thursdays 15.30-16.50 Chicago time

Office hours: Book online here for a meeting in Rosenwald 318A or on Zoom (please indicate in your online booking)

Instructor: Marisa Casillas (mcasillas@uchicago.edu)

This course examines the emergence of communicative skills in humans. We will discuss the proposed cognitive, developmental, and evolutionary roots of communicative behaviors, with a focus on current gaps in our knowledge and possible pathways forward. The course will consider these issues from multiple perspectives including linguistics, psychology, and linguistic anthropology, and will cover a wide range of methods used to analyze communicative cognition. It is expected that, by the end of the course, students will able to think and write critically about how human communication and human language are intertwined in both adults and children.

Grading

Students enrolled in this course will be graded on the following basis:

Reading notes (45%)

Students are expected to submit digital notes summarizing and reacting to each assigned reading (~1/2 page+ each). Dr. Casillas will evaluate each student’s notes for each reading: tips for effective note-taking will be covered in the first class. Notes are only required for 28** of the readings, and students may pick which 28 readings to submit notes for (i.e., students earn 1.5% for each reading with satisfactory notes). ** This number was originally “30” but Dr. Casillas changed it to 28 on 26 March 2024

• 28 x 1.5 points for every reading with notes

Transcription mini-project (15%)

Students will incrementally add annotations to a small collection of interaction clips over multiple weeks. Each time they submit new annotations, they are expected to submit short written reflections on their progress (200–500 words). The submission of annotations and reflections takes place four times (up to 3% for all four submissions). Students will also propose a mini research question that can be addressed by additional annotations of the data (up to 2%) and after executing these additional annotations, will present their findings to the class (up to 1%).

• 4 x 3 points for every annotation + reflections submission
• 1 x 2 points for proposal of mini research question
• 1 x 1 points for flash presentation of findings

Research proposal (20%)

Students will propose a research project relevant to topics covered in class; proposals can be in the form of follow-up studies or a new line of research (8–10 double-spaced pages). Students will give a flash presentation of their proposed research in class (up to 2%). Full proposals are due the Tuesday of finals week (up to 18%).

To ensure timely completion of a high-quality proposal, please take advantage of the optional deadlines in the schedule below for initial drafts of the outline, design, and literature review). Dr. Casillas will give early feedback for initial drafts submitted at these deadlines so that students can improve the proposal before their final submission.

• 1 x 2 points for flash presentation of the proposed research
• 1 x 18 points for the full proposal of research project

Participation (20%)

This is a discussion-based class and students are generally expected to come to class and actively participate in discussion. By default, students are expected to attend class, ask at least one question, and respond to at least one question (max 1% per class). The last 2% of participation credit is earned by making contributions to each class debate (up to 1% each).

• 18 x 1 point for active attendance at each class
• 2 x 1 point for contributions to the debate and the turn-taking “feature” presentation

Course schedule

Foundational concepts for interaction study

Week 1: Tuesday, 19 March 2024

[slides]

Pre-class reading

Levinson, S. C. (1995). Interactional biases in human thinking. In E. N. Goody (Ed.), Social intelligence and interaction (pp. 221-260). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pdf

Clark, H. H. (1996). Joint Actions. In Using Language (pp. 59–91). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pdf

Levinson, S. C. (2006). On the human “interaction engine”. In N. J. Enfield, & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Roots of Human Sociality: Culture, Cognition and Interaction (pp. 39-69). Oxford: Berg. pdf

Assignments due

None!

Week 1: Thursday, 21 March 2024

[slides]

Pre-class reading

Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. A., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn taking for conversation. In Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction (pp. 7-55). Academic Press. pdf

Stivers, T. (2013). Sequence Organization. In J. Sidnell and T. Stivers (Eds.), The Handbook of Conversation Analysis (pp. 191–209). Blackwell Publishing Ltd. pdf

Stivers, T., & Rossano, F. (2010). Mobilizing response. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 43(1), 3-31. pdf

Assignments due

1. Reading notes for both March 19th and 21st.
2. Fill out data protection mini tutorial
3. Start thinking about which interaction clips you want to annotate

Comparative interaction studies

Week 2: Tuesday, 26 March 2024

[slides]

Pre-class reading

Stivers, T., Enfield, N. J., Brown, P., Englert, C., Hayashi, M., Heinemann, T., … & Levinson, S. C. (2009). Universals and cultural variation in turn-taking in conversation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(26), 10587-10592. pdf

Dingemanse, M., Roberts, S. G., Baranova, J., Blythe, J., Drew, P., Floyd, S., Gisladottir, R. S., Kendrick, K. H., Levinson, S. C., Manrique, E., Rossi, G., & Enfield, N. J. (2015). Universal Principles in the Repair of Communication Problems. PLOS ONE, 10(9): e0136100. pdf

*Kendrick, K. H., Brown, P., Dingemanse, M., Floyd, S., Gipper, S., Hayano, K., Hoey, E., Hoymann, G., Manrique, E., Rossi, G., & Levinson, S. C. (2020). Sequence organization: A universal infrastructure for social action. Journal of Pragmatics, 168, 119–138. pdf

*Enfield, N. J., Stivers, T., Brown, P., Englert, C., Harjunpää, K., Hayashi, M., … & Raymond, C. W. (2019). Polar answers. Journal of Linguistics, 55(2), 277-304. pdf

* = Optional

Assignments due

1. Reading notes
2. Choose/make your interaction clips for annotation; notify Dr. Casillas

Week 2: Thursday, 28 March 2024

Catch up on Tuesday’s [slides]

Pre-class reading

None!

Assignments due

1. Annotations: Diarization (due by Sunday, March 31st at 11:59pm)
2. Reflection paragraph: In what ways did the organization of turns in your clips align with the ideas we have covered so far? In what ways did it deviate from expectations? (due by Sunday, March 31st at 11:59pm)

Week 3: Tuesday, 2 April 2024

[slides]

Pre-class reading

Pika, S., Wilkinson, R., Kendrick, K. H., & Vernes, S. C. (2018). Taking turns: bridging the gap between human and animal communication. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 285(1880), 20180598. pdf

*Fröhlich, M., Kuchenbuch, P., Müller, G., Fruth, B., Furuichi, T., Wittig, R. M., & Pika, S. (2016). Unpeeling the layers of language: Bonobos and chimpanzees engage in cooperative turn-taking sequences. Scientific Reports, 6, 25887. pdf

* = Optional

Assignments due

1. Reading notes

Cognitive models of interaction

Week 3: Thursday, 4 April 2024

[slides]

Pre-class reading

Duncan, S. (1972). Some signals and rules for taking speaking turns in conversations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 23(2), 283–292. pdf

Wilson, M., & Wilson, T. P. (2005). An oscillator model of the timing of turn-taking. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 12(6), 957-968. pdf

Heldner, M., & Edlund, J. (2010). Pauses, gaps and overlaps in conversations. Journal of Phonetics, 38(4), 555-568. pdf

Assignments due

1. Reading notes
2. Annotations: First-pass transcription (due by Sunday, April 7th 11:59pm)
3. Reflection paragraph: What does transcription miss about interaction? How would you propose to maximize the benefits of transcription while minimizing missed information? (Be practical) (due by Sunday, April 7th 11:59pm)

Week 4: Tuesday, 9 April 2024

Continue with cognitive models [slides]

Pre-class reading

Pickering, M. J., & Garrod, S. (2004). Toward a mechanistic psychology of dialogue. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 27(2), 169-190. pdf

Levinson, S. C., & Torreira, F. (2015). Timing in turn-taking and its implications for processing models of language. Frontiers in Psychology, 6: 731. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00731. pdf

Assignments due

1. Reading notes

Week 4: Thursday, 11 April 2024

DEBATE + assign groups for turn-taking feature presentations [slides]

Pre-class reading

Bögels, S. (2020). Neural correlates of turn taking in the wild: Response planning starts early in free interviews. Cognition, 203:104347. pdf

Lelonkiewicz, J. R., Gambi, C., Weller, L., & Pfister, R. (2020). Action-effect anticipation and temporal adaptation in social interactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 46(4), 335–349. pdf

Rabagliati, H., Robertson, A., & Carmel, D. (2018). The importance of awareness for understanding language. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 147(2), 190. pdf

Assignments due

1. Reading notes

Visible conversation

Week 5: Tuesday, 16 April 2024

[slides]

Pre-class reading

Clark, H. H. (2016). Depicting as a method of communication. Psychological Review, 123(3), 324–347. pdf

Holler, J. & Levinson, S. C. (2019). Multimodal language processing in human communication. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 23(8), p. 639–652. pdf

Pouw, W., Proksch, S., Drijvers, L., Gamba, M., Holler, J., Kello, C., Schaefer, R. S., & Wiggins, G. A. (2021). Multilevel rhythms in multimodal communication. _Philosophical Transactions B, 376:_20200334. pdf

Assignments due

1. Reading notes
2. Second-pass transcribe conversation clips
3. Reflection paragraph: What did you neglect to notice when you first transcribed the clips? What do you think you would discover if you made a further correctional pass?
4. Outline for presentation on turn-taking feature

Week 5: Thursday, 18 April 2024 [Zoom]

Turn-taking feature presentations + [slides]

Pre-class reading

De Vos, C., Torreira, F., & Levinson, S. C. (2015). Turn-timing in signed conversations: Coordinating stroke-to-stroke turn boundaries. Frontiers in Psychology, 6:268. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00268. pdf

Holler, J., Kendrick, K. H., & Levinson, S. C. (2018). Processing language in face-to-face conversation: Questions with gestures get faster responses. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 25(5), 1900-1908. doi:10.3758/s13423-017-1363-z. pdf

Hömke, P., Holler, J., & Levinson, S. C. (2018). Eye blinks are perceived as communicative signals in human face-to-face interaction. PLoS One, 13(12): e0208030. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0208030. pdf

Assignments due

1. Reading notes
2. Presentation on turn-taking feature

Conversation with child interactants

Week 6: Tuesday, 23 April 2024 [Zoom]

[slides]

Pre-class reading

Snow, C. E. (1977). The development of conversation between mothers and babies. Journal of Child Language, 4(1), 1-22. pdf

Ratner, N., & Bruner, J. (1978). Games, social exchange and the acquisition of language. Journal of Child Language, 5(3), 391-401. pdf

Casillas, M., & Hilbrink, E. (2020). Communicative act development. In K. P. Schneider, & E. Ifantidou (Eds.), Developmental and Clinical Pragmatics. De Gruyter Mouton. pdf

Assignments due

1. Reading notes
2. 500 word (maximum) proposal for additional analysis on the conversation clips

Week 6: Thursday, 25 April 2024

[slides]

Pre-class reading

Hilbrink, E., Gattis, M., & Levinson, S. C. (2015). Early developmental changes in the timing of turn-taking: A longitudinal study of mother-infant interaction. Frontiers in Psychology, 6:1492. pdf

Casillas, M., Bobb, S. C., & Clark, E. V. (2016). Turn taking, timing, and planning in early language acquisition. Journal of Child Language, 43, 1310-1337. pdf

Romeo, R. R., Leonard, J. A., Robinson, S. T., West, M. R., Mackey, A. P., Rowe, M. L., & Gabrieli, J. D. (2018). Beyond the 30-million-word gap: Children’s conversational exposure is associated with language-related brain function. Psychological Science, 29(5), 700-710. pdf

*Cosper, S. H., & Pika, S. (2024). Human turn-taking development: A multi-faceted review of turn-taking comprehension and production in the first years of life. preprint

* = Optional

Assignments due

1. Reading notes

Week 7: Tuesday, 30 April 2024

FLASH talks on annotation + [slides]

Pre-class reading

Stivers, T., Sidnell, J., & Bergen, C. (2018). Children’s responses to questions in peer interaction: A window into the ontogenesis of interactional competence. Journal of Pragmatics, 124, 14-30. pdf

Shatz, M. (1978). On the development of communicative understandings: An early strategy for interpreting and responding to messages. Cognitive Psychology, 10(3), 271-301. pdf

Tatsumi, T., & Pine, J. (2023, November 14). Shifting toward progressive and balanced interaction: a longitudinal corpus study on children’s response to Who-questions in Japanese. preprint

*Shatz, M., & O’Reilly, A. W. (1990). Conversational or communicative skill? A reassessment of two-year-olds’ behaviour in miscommunication episodes. Journal of Child Language, 17(1), 131-146. pdf

* = Optional

Assignments due

1. Reading notes
2. 3-min flash talk on reasoning, methods, and results of added annotations
3. Peer grades of flash talks (due same day by 11:59pm)
4. Final annotation files, with instructions attached for how to add annotations (due same day by 11:59pm)

Week 7: Thursday, 2 May 2024

[slides]

Pre-class reading

Casillas, M., & Frank, M. C. (2017). The development of children’s ability to track and predict turn structure in conversation. Journal of Memory and Language, 92, 234-253. pdf

Lindsay, L., Gambi, C., & Rabagliati, H. (2019). Preschoolers optimize the timing of their conversational turns through flexible coordination of language comprehension and production. Psychological Science. pdf

von Hofsten, C., Uhlig, H., Adell, M., & Kochukhova, O. (2009). How children with Autism look at events. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 3(2), 556-569. pdf

Assignments due

1. Reading notes

Becoming a conversationalist

[slides]

Week 8: Tuesday, 7 May 2024

Dunn, J., & Shatz, M. (1989). Becoming a conversationalist despite (or because of) having an older sibling. Child Development, 399-410. pdf

Gaskins, S. (2006). Cultural perspectives on infant-caregiver interaction. In N. J. Enfield, & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Roots of Human Sociality: Culture, Cognition and Interaction (pp. 279-298). Oxford: Berg. pdf

*Barton, M. E., & Tomasello, M. (1991). Joint attention and conversation in mother‐infant‐sibling triads. Child Development, 62(3), 517-529. pdf

*Brown, P. (2011). The cultural organization of attention. In A. Duranti, E. Ochs, & B. B. Schieffelin (Eds.), The Handbook of Language Socialization (pp. 29-55). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. pdf

* = Optional

Assignments due

1. Reading notes
2. OPTIONAL: Draft of research proposal outline

Conversation with robots

Week 8: Thursday, 9 May 2024

Pre-class reading

Clark, H. H., & Fischer, K. (2023). Social robots as depictions of social agents. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 46, e21. pdf

Cai, Z. G., Haslett, D. A., Duan, X., Wang, S., & Pickering, M. J. (2023). Does ChatGPT resemble humans in language use? preprint

Argyle, L. P., Bail, C. A., Busby, E. C., Gubler, J. R., Howe, T., Rytting, C., … & Wingate, D. (2023). Leveraging AI for democratic discourse: Chat interventions can improve online political conversations at scale. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(41), e2311627120. pdf

*Agrawal, A., Nikolaus, M., Favre, B., & Fourtassi, A. (2024, March 21). Automatic Coding of Contingency in Child-Caregiver Conversations. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/hwnms preprint

* = Optional

Assignments due

1. Reading notes
2. OPTIONAL: Draft of research proposal study design

Wrapping up

Week 9: Tuesday, 14 May 2024

Pre-class reading: None!

Assignments due

1. Research proposal flash talks (1st half)
2. OPTIONAL: Draft of research proposal literature review

Week 9: Thursday, 16 May 2024

Pre-class reading: None!

Assignments due

1. Research proposal flash talks (2nd half)

Finals week

DUE 21 MAY 2024 AT 11.59pm CHICAGO TIME: Full research proposal (8–10 pages; see rubric)

Contact

Email: mcasillas@uchicago.edu

Office: Rosenwald 318A

Office hours: Book online here for a meeting in Rosenwald 318A or on Zoom (please indicate in your online booking)

If you require any accommodations for this course, as soon as possible please provide your instructor with a copy of your Accommodation Determination Letter (provided to you by the Student Disability Services office) so that you may discuss with him/her how your accommodations may be implemented in this course. The University of Chicago is committed to ensuring the full participation of all students in its programs. If you have a documented disability (or think you may have a disability) and, as a result, need a reasonable accommodation to participate in class, complete course requirements, or benefit from the University’s programs or services, you are encouraged to contact Student Disability Services as soon as possible. To receive reasonable accommodation, you must be appropriately registered with Student Disability Services. Please contact the office at 773-834-4469/TTY 773-795-1186 or gmoorehead@uchicago.edu, or visit the website at disabilities.uchicago.edu. Student Disability Services is located in Room 233 in the Administration Building located at 5801 S. Ellis Avenue.