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Social function

Structural function

The speaker has to organize and the listener has to identify the hierarchy of information units starting from the most prominent syllable in a word, the most prominent word in an intonation group, the varying prominence and the cohesion of intonation groups in longer utterances, such as speech paragraphs or the whole text.

For example, in the paragraph quoted below the heroine of the film introduces us into the situation by naming the most important events and problems of a single young woman which led up to her decision to change her life. If we just read through the words marked by pitch, length and loudness, we can restore the flow of her thought and the key concepts of the critical situation posited in the monologue:

It all BEGAN/ on NEW YEAR'S DAY/ in my THIRTY-SECOND YEAR/ of BEING SINGLE.//Once AGAIN,/1 found myself ON my OWN/and going to my MOTHER'S annual TURKEYCURRY BUFFET//EVERY YEAR/she tries to fix me up with some BUSHY-HAIRED middle-aged BORE/ and I feared THIS year would BE/ NO EXCEPTION.//

In a dialogue or polilogue the speaker — listener interaction is reflected in the unity of one topic for discussion shared by all the participants, with key words brought out by prosodic means, followed by special boundary tones, pitch range and tempo variation to signal transition to a new topic. In the following passage the three friends give instructions of the type "how to be a success at the presentation". Every participant makes a contribution into developing the theme, thus creating a text in which each piece of advice is balanced off by an illustration:

Jude: Right. No pressure, Bridge, but your whole future happiness now depends on how you behave on this one social occasion. Bridget: Right. What should I do? J: FIRST, look GORGEOUS. B: Ohh. 'Ow. 'Gooh! J: TWO - then TOTALLY IGNORE DANIEL and SUCK UP to FA-

MOUSAUTHORS. B: Salman. Salman. Salman. Tom: CIRCULATE. OOZING INTELLIGENCE.

B: Isn't it terrible about Chechnya? Isn't it terrible about Chechnya? Chechnya. Shazzer: INTRODUCE PEOPLE with THOUGHTFUL DETAILS, such as "Sheila... This is Daniel. Daniel, this is Sheila. Sheila enjoys horse-riding and comes from New Zealand. Daniel enjoys publishing and comes..."

Information structuring is still more evident in other speech styles.

In radio news reading, paragraphs of information could be shaped through the use of pitch. In sports commentary, changes in prosody reflect the progress of the action.

Prosodic means of signalling social relations between speakers may correlate with the permanent social status of an individual or with the situational social role in a particular talk. Prosody is an important marker of personal or social identity (and is, therefore, called indexical): lawyers, preachers, newscasters, sports commentators, army sergeants, and several other occupations are readily identified through their distinctive prosody. There are also ways of establishing and confirming the relative status of each speaker, as well as demonstrating a situational change in the speakers' social roles: a higher and wider pitch range accompanied by slower tempo with perfect timing is a sign of dominance, while a faster tempo and a narrow pitch range is a feature of submissiveness. It is also customary to demonstrate deference to higher rank and older age by varying one's tempo and loudness, using specific, culturally accepted pitch patterns. Consider the increase in pitch level and loudness level in the words of address to the meeting (a) and people's introductions on a formal occasion (b):

a) Ladies and ~*gentlemen,...

b) Ah, Na'tasha./ This is Bridget''Jones./.Bridget,/ this is Na'tasha./ Na-'tasha is а 'top attorney/and 'specializes in family Jaw.//

Among the conventional formulae there are prosodic patterns of greet­ings, leave takings, thanks, apologies and other habitual sayings. We may call them "intonational idioms" as they are prosodically set expressions with the so-called "iconic" form. The most common patterns are fall + rise or fall+level, the obvious connotations being to keep contact with the listener. There are, of course, genuine thanks and agreements which call for a falling pitch pattern; however, when followed by the name of the person addressed, they also end in a rise or a level tone.

' Thanks,,Dad. 'Hello, „Dad!'Hello,.darling. 'Mor,ning. 'Afternoon, jBrenda. Гт 'terribly jorry. What are you ''doing to „night? What about to'mor/ow? Next night? 'Right.there. Hang 'on a.minute, Jones. Come 'on „then. Now 'look... 'Certainly, „Sir. Had a drink?'Have a /drink. Don't be 'shy, „Madame. Do you love me? Which was? Wish me luck! What? Who's Julian? Give me a minute. You're up to something. Here we go. We'll see how we go. Where are you? Give me time. Г11 be all right. Fine. Right. Nice firm grip...Well, bye, everyone. Off they run. Hello there. Sorry? Happy New Year! Between you and me... The thing is... If you ask me... By the by... No problem. How's it going? And that was it.

So far we have been looking at intonation and prosody functions, many of which overlap, in the most general context of communication, and we have found that most of the prosodic features "work" together to create complex effects of grouping, structuring and ranking ideas, concepts, attitudes and conveying them to other people. However, each prosodic parameter can be analyzed separately, especially if we use the method of the analysis through synthesis: by manipulating the physical values of tempo or pitch range, for instance, we can then test which changes could be detected by the human ear, and, therefore, relevant for human communication.

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Functions of prosodic features | Universal, typological, specific features
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