We explore the impact of speaker identity on the interpretation
of number words in a T(ruth)-V(alue) J(udgment) task –
a paradigm in which respondents assess whether a given
description appropriately represents a given body of facts. We
find that imprecise statements from speakers socially expected
to be less precise – i.e. “Chill” ones – are rejected at a higher
rate, and thus held to more stringent evaluation standards, than
those from speakers socially expected to speak more precisely
– i.e. “Nerdy” ones, and especially so when participants do
not identify with the speaker’s properties. This shows that TVJ
assessments are impacted by respondents’ social perception of
the speaker; but that they are affected by social considerations
in a different way from other experimental tasks similarly
tapping into meaning interpretation, suggesting a nuanced
interplay between social information and pragmatic reasoning