Interaction Phonology – Rhythmic Coordination as Scaffold for Communicative Alignment

Interaction Phonology (Wagner et al., 2013) postulates a process of rhythmic co-ordination based onentrainment processes which provide the temporal scaffold for higher order adaptation among interlocutors in critical situations, and hence, improves communication. 10 years after the publication of our framework, the time is more than ripe for its first evaluation and a thorough re-assessment. To achieve this, I will first give an overview of the general assumptions and motivations underlyingInteraction Phonology, and then describe its mechanism as a logistic, attention-guiding component in a model of speech processing in interaction. I will then derive a set of model predictions, and evaluate them based on a thorough review of more recent empirical studies. In a last step, I will slightly modify our original model of Interaction Phonology (cf. Figure 1, for an overview of the original model; cf.Figure 2, for the adapted version), and list desiderata for its further testing in the future.