Social function

Structural function

THE DEFINITION OF PROSODY. FUNCTIONS OF PROSODY (29)

By prosody the majority of linguists mean constant physical or acoustic characteristics

of speech (spectrum) and absence of speech signal. P. is something that organizes our speech.

Prosody is “a term used in suprasegmental phonetics and phonology to refer collectively

to variations in pitch, loudness, tempo and rhythm ”. (Crystal). Recently voice quality has been added to the list of prosodic features.

Functions

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.

Pitch, length and loudness help to restore the key concepts of the situation posited in speech act, to get the structural vision of the speech act.

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.

Information structuring is more evident in radio newsreading, sports commentary (changes in prosody reflect the progress of the action).

It is subdivided into:

a) constitutive function. It presupposes the integrative function on the one hand when intonation

b) arranges intonation groups into bigger syntactic units: sentences, texts.

c) If it were not for this function, we would hear separate words at the same pitch.

d) intergrative.

e) delimitative. It manifests itself when intonation divides texts, syntactic wholes and sentence units that is intonation groups.

ex. He ¢washed and ¢brushed his \hair.

He -> washedand brushed his \hair.

Our oral speech can give info to the listener about his gender, age, education, place – domain of prosody.

Prosody is an important marker of personal or social identity: lawyers, preachers, newscasters, army sergeants

are readily identified through their distinctive prosody. For example: I 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.

Among the conventional formulae (‘Ladies and gentlemen…’) there are prosodic patterns of greetings,

leave talks, thanks, apologies, etc. (Thanks, Dad. Morning. Give me a minute. No problem.)

which all suit the common pattern fall + rise or fall + level, the obvious connotations being to keep contact with the listener.

Дата добавления: 2015-05-31