Just below our awareness, small words like mmhm, huh? and oh streamline interaction and make complex language possible. These words, and a few more, are the elementary particles that hold together everyday conversations. Investigating them can help us understand why languages are the way they are and can help us build better language technology. We combine computational models and comparative work on conversations across the globe to study how language is shaped by and for social interaction.
Tools for efficient communication
The Elementary Particles of Conversation project studies live conversations across dozens of languages around the world. One thing uniting these diverse languages is the frequent occurrence of interjections. Each of them has a specific function —showing that you're listening with mmhm, requesting clarification with huh?, showing that you've understood with oh, and so on. Together, they form a versatile toolkit that we use to streamline our interactions.
Combining cross-linguistic research with computer models, the researchers have found that across languages, the forms of these words are perfectly adapted to their functions. A streamlined word like mmhm is found everywhere around the world and is optimally shaped to convey attention and the expectation that more will follow. Computational modelling has also allowed the researchers to show how repair questions like huh? can support efficient communication: by allowing us to share the work of figuring out complex meanings, they effectively enable a form of distributed cognition.
