Collaborative Model

In psycholinguistics, the collaborative model (or conversational model) is a theory for explaining how speaking and understanding work in conversation, specifically how people in conversation coordinate to determine definite references.

The model, initially proposed in 1986 by psycholinguists Herb Clark and Deanna Wilkes-Gibbs, and supported by an experiment with Tangram figures described below, asserts that speakers and listeners in a conversation act collaboratively, moment-by-moment in establishing meaning. In this model it is suggested that the speaker and listener must mutually accept that the listener has understood (or appeared to understand) the speaker's utterances before the conversation can progress. This back and forth process of collaborative understanding progresses through a process of Presentation and Acceptance.

In this ongoing process, X presents a noun phrase to Y in order to establish what it is A is referring to. To initiate the referential process, the speaker uses one of at least six types of noun phrases, including the elementary noun phrase, the episodic noun phrase, the installment noun phrase, the provisional noun phrase, the dummy noun phrase, and the proxy noun phrase. Once this presentation is made, Y must accept it either through presupposing acceptance(i.e. letting X continue uninterrupted) or asserting acceptance (i.e. through a continuer such as "yes", okay", or head knod), and X and Y must mutually recognize that acceptance. In this process, presentation and acceptance goes back and forth, and some utterances can simultaneously be both presentations and acceptances. This model also posits that conversationalists strive for minimum collaborative effort by making references based more on permanent properties than temporary properties and by refining perspective on referents through simplification and narrowing .