Lexical entrainment

Lexical entrainment is the phenomenon in conversational linguistics of the process of the subject adopting the reference terms of their interlocutor. In practice, it acts as a mechanism of the cooperative principle in which both parties to the conversation employ lexical entrainment as a progressive system to develop "conceptual pacts" (a working temporary conversational terminology) to ensure maximum clarity of reference in the communication between the parties; this process is necessary to overcome the ambiguity inherent in the multitude of synonyms that exist in language.

Lexical entrainment arises by two cooperative mechanisms:

  • Embedded corrections – a reference to the object implied by the context of the sentence, but with no explicit reference to the change in terminology
  • Exposed corrections – an explicit reference to the change in terminology, possibly including a request to assign the referent a common term (e.g., "by 'girl', do you mean 'Jane'?")
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