Emphatic speech style : with special focus on the prosodic signalling of heightened emotive involvement in conservation

  • After a review of previous work on the prosody of emotional involvement, data extracts from natural conversations are analyzed in order to argue for the constitution of an 'emphatic (speech) style', which linguistic devices are used to signal heightened emotive involvement. Participants use prosodic cues, in co-occurrence with syntactic and lexical cues, to contextualize turn-constructional units as 'emphatic'. Only realizations of prosodic categories that are marked in relation to surrounding uses of these categories have the power to contextualize units as displaying 'more-than-normal involvement'. In the appropriate context, and in cooccurrence with syntactic and lexical cues and sequential position, the context-sensitive interpretation of this involvement is 'emphasis'. Prosodic marking is used in addition to various unmarked cues that signal and constitute different activity types in conversation. Emphatic style highlights and reinforms particular conversational activities, and makes certain types of recipient responses locallyAfter a review of previous work on the prosody of emotional involvement, data extracts from natural conversations are analyzed in order to argue for the constitution of an 'emphatic (speech) style', which linguistic devices are used to signal heightened emotive involvement. Participants use prosodic cues, in co-occurrence with syntactic and lexical cues, to contextualize turn-constructional units as 'emphatic'. Only realizations of prosodic categories that are marked in relation to surrounding uses of these categories have the power to contextualize units as displaying 'more-than-normal involvement'. In the appropriate context, and in cooccurrence with syntactic and lexical cues and sequential position, the context-sensitive interpretation of this involvement is 'emphasis'. Prosodic marking is used in addition to various unmarked cues that signal and constitute different activity types in conversation. Emphatic style highlights and reinforms particular conversational activities, and makes certain types of recipient responses locally relevant. In particular, switches from non-emphatic to emphatic style are used to contextualize 'peaks of involvement' or 'climaxes' in story-telling. These are shown in the paper to be 'staged' by speakers and treated by recipients as marked activities calling for displays of alignment with respect to the matter at hand. Signals of emphasis are deployable as techniques for locally organizing demonstrations of shared understanding and participant reciprocity in conversational interaction.show moreshow less

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Metadaten
Author details:Margret SeltingORCiDGND
URN:urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-37933
Publication series (Volume number):Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Philosophische Reihe (41)
Publication type:Postprint
Language:English
Publication year:1994
Publishing institution:Universität Potsdam
Release date:2010/03/22
Source:Journal of pragmatics. - 22 (1994) 3/4, S. 375-408, ISSN 0378-2166
Organizational units:Philosophische Fakultät / Institut für Germanistik
DDC classification:4 Sprache / 40 Sprache / 400 Sprache
License (German):License LogoKeine öffentliche Lizenz: Unter Urheberrechtsschutz
External remark:
The original publication is available at www.sciencedirect.com:
Journal of pragmatics. - 22 (1994) Issue 3/4, p. 375-408
ISSN 0378-2166
DOI 10.1016/0378-2166(94)90116-3
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