Bilinguals show reduced sensitivity to audience-related considerations in language production: corpus evidence from Mandarin referring expressions

Abstract It has long been argued that speakers’ choices of linguistic forms during production are influenced by the functional pressures of efficiency and ambiguity avoidance. A reduced form is often easier to produce but can potentially cause ambiguity. Examining bilinguals’ choices between the full and reduced forms can provide valuable insights into how the pressures compete with each other. In the present study, we explore the alternating use of full and reduced forms of Mandarin referring expressions through a multi-factorial analysis on three groups of Mandarin speakers (Cantonese-Mandarin bilinguals, Mandarin-Cantonese bilinguals, and Mandarin monolinguals) to determine whether bilinguals with lower language proficiency can coordinate between production constraints and audience-related considerations. The findings revealed that all three groups of speakers show tendencies of saving effort and avoiding ambiguity in their production of referring expressions. However, bilinguals demonstrated an overuse of reduced forms, which indicates that they are less sensitive to audience-related considerations in language production.