Dispreferred

Dispreferred is an adjective meaning not preferred; less favored or less desirable than another option. The term is used across disciplines to mark variants, interpretations, or behaviors that are less likely to be chosen or accepted in a given context, compared with a corresponding preferred form.

In linguistics, dispreferred describes language forms or interpretations that speakers, writers, or communities favor less than standard or more common variants. A dispreferred pronunciation, spelling, or grammatical construction is one that tends to be avoided in formal or prestige registers. In variationist sociolinguistics, researchers may label variants as dispreferred when they are judged less appropriate or stigmatized in particular social settings.

In psycholinguistics and discourse analysis, “dispreferred readings” or “dispreferred interpretations” refer to plausible but less likely understandings of an ambiguous sentence given typical world knowledge or syntactic constraints. Markers of dispreference can arise from processing difficulty, ambiguity avoidance, or established parsing preferences.

The term often carries evaluative connotations, signaling that a particular form or interpretation is discouraged or less desirable within a given normative framework. Nevertheless, in scholarly usage it functions as a descriptive label that highlights contrasts with what is labeled as the preferred option.

See also: preferred, preference, sociolinguistics, politeness theory, processing difficulty, reading.