Referee design occurs when style orients toward a meaningful reference group that may be absent. It explains how speakers can signal affiliation, authority, or distance instead of simply adapting to the immediate listener. Interpretation depends on the local social meanings of linguistic choices.
- FamilyModel
- Category of its source unitTheories & Explanatory Models
- DomainConversation & Relationships
What these mean
Editorial orientation · Family
Model
In this series, Model names the editorial family primarily used to understand and explain communication: theories, frameworks, effects, traditions, principles and other conceptual resources. It is an umbrella for a route into the field, not a claim that every included object is a predictive model.
Editorial orientation · Category
Theories & Explanatory Models
Explains how or why a communication process works by relating mechanisms, conditions or variables. Its value is an account that can guide inquiry into what produces an outcome, rather than a name for the outcome alone.