Prosodic Orientation in English Conversation

by Beatrice Szczepek Reed

Overview

Prosodic Orientation in English Conversation encompasses the description and analysis of an entirely new interactional phenomenon: the collaborative orientation to prosody in spontaneous conversation. Prosodic orientation is a conversational strategy by which participants in natural talk design the vocal aspects of their speech analogous to the vocal patterns used by others in the immediate conversational context. The findings show that speakers interact with and respond to one another on a purely prosodic level, thus engaging in a form of collaboration which reveals prosody to be treated as an independent domain of conversation. All analyses are based on natural occurrences of everyday talk.

About the Author:
Beatrice Szczepek Reed is Research Fellow in the Centre for English Language Education, University of Nottingham, UK

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230008724
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	10/31/2006
Edition description:	2007
Pages:	231
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.99(h) x 0.03(d)

About the Author

BEATRICE SZCZEPEK REED is a Research Fellow at the Centre for English Language Education, University of Nottingham, UK. Her research and publications focus on prosody in natural conversation, turn-taking and the interface between singing and speech. Her current research explores teaching turn-taking to learners of English, and intercultural aspects of turn-taking.

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures     x
Acknowledgements     xi
Preface     xii
GAT Transcription Conventions     xiii
Prosody in Conversation     1
Introduction     1
Prosody defined     3
Previous approaches to prosody     10
The tonetic approach     10
Autosegmental-metrical phonology     13
Firthian prosodic analysis     18
Dwight Bolinger     21
The prosody of spontaneous conversation     21
Paradigms     22
Linguistic units for the analysis of prosody in conversation     27
The data     31
Preview     31
Prosodic Orientation     33
Introduction     33
Types of prosodic orientation     34
Prosodic matching     35
Prosodic non-matching     57
Prosodic complementation     61
Summary     64
Interactional environments for prosodic orientation     65
Prosodically orienting responses     65
Turn yielding prosodic orientation     78
Action-closing prosodic orientation     83
Summary     87
Conclusion     88
Stylized Prosodic Orientation     91
Introduction     91
Previous research on stylized prosody     92
Pike (1945)     93
Abe (1962)     93
Liberman (1975)     94
Gibbon (1976)     96
Ladd (1978)     98
Haiman (1989; 1990; 1994)     100
Flowe (2002)     101
Couper-Kuhlen (1999a; 2004)     102
Types of stylized prosodic orientations     103
Musical notes or intervals     104
Marked prosody     111
Stylization by repetition     123
Summary     126
Interactional environments for stylized prosodic orientation     127
Appreciation     127
Stylized voicing of imaginary figures     130
Conversational structures     135
Stylized interludes     140
Conclusion     147
Collaborative Productions: Orientation in Prosody and Syntax     150
Introduction     150
Previous research on collaborative productions     151
Sacks (1995)     151
Lerner (1991; 1996)     152
Ferrara (1992)     153
Ono and Thompson (1995)     154
Local (2000; 2005)     154
Types of collaborative productions     155
Types of projection     157
Completions and extensions     164
Collaborative productions as non-competitive early incomings     175
Interactional environments for collaborative productions     179
Collaborative productions in duets     179
Summary     185
Showing understanding     188
Borrowing     197
Eliciting information     201
Response tokens as one form of recipient reaction     202
Summary     207
Conclusion     208
Conclusion     209
Summary     209
Conclusion     211
Notes     213
Bibliography     219
Index     229