Fluency in the Production of Requests: Effects of Degree of Imposition,Schematicity and Instruction Set

Abstract

Recent work by Greene & Lindsey (1989) and Greene, Lindsey & Hawn (1990) indicates that speakers are less fluent when addressing multiple goals than when addressing a single goal. In that research, subjects were explicitly instructed to address either a single goal or multiple goals. The present study asks whether fluency is affected by variations in situational features that bear upon the likelihood that a speaker will naturally activate a face-saving goal. Subjects produced requests in four hypothetical request situations that varied in the degree of imposition on the hearer and in schematicity. Half of the subjects were encouraged to address negative face needs (instruction condition) and half were not (noinstruction condition). In the no-instruction condition, onset latency, pause-to-phonation ratio, the false start rate, the filled pause rate, and the repetition rate were significantly greater in high-imposition than in low-imposition request situations. In the instruction condition, the pause-to-phonation ratio, false start rate and filled pause rate were not influenced by the degree of imposition. The results are consistent with the view that a perception of high imposition gives rise to a negative face goal, with a resulting detrimental effect upon fluency. The effect of degree of imposition on fluency did not depend upon whether the request situations were schematic or unschematic.