The Phonetic Shape of Second Assessments
–Conversational and Social
Considerations
Mirjam Elisabeth Eiswirth [email protected]
Supervisor: Dr. Lauren Hall-LewPostgraduate Conference, LEL, UoE
30th of May 2014
Structure
• Research Question
• Definitions
• Pilot study
• Follow-up study (ongoing)
• Take-Home Message
Research Questions
• Is there gradience in the phonetic shape of the four types of second assessments?
• Which factors condition the gradience and the variation?
Definitions
• Assessment sequence
• Focus phrase
• Pitch prominence
• (Relative) f0-excursion
• Delta values
Pomerantz, 1984
Example Assessment Type
AS1: It’s beautiful outside.
AS2: It’s gorgeous!
Strong agreement
AS1: It’s beautiful outside.
AS2: Yeah, it’s beautiful.
‘same assessment’
AS1: It’s beautiful outside.
AS2: It’s okay.
Downgrading
AS1: It’s beautiful outside.
AS2: No, it’s not.
Strong disagreement
M1 And by football I mean (.) the European football and not American football (.) That’s pointless. American football is pointless.
F1 [O:::h rea::lly?]F2 Both are pointless.M1 NoF1 [yes they are]F2 yesM1 No
Example
• Assessment sequence • Focus phrase• Pitch prominence, • (Relative) f0-excursion • Delta values
THE PILOT STUDY
-Information on academic context
-Pilot study – participants, data, transcription
-Preliminary findings and conclusions
The Research Context
• Is there gradience in the phonetic shape of the four types of second assessments?
• Conversation Analytic perspective: Richard Ogden (2006); John Local (2003)
• Variationist perspective: Malca Yaeger-Dror (et al.) (1996, 2002a/b/c, 2003)
Hypotheses
• Social Agreement Principle (cf. Sacks, 1987, Pomerantz, 1984)
– Agreements most prominent, disagreements least
prominent
• Cognitive Prominence Principle
– Disagreements most prominent, agreements least
prominent
The Data
• 6h of naturally occurring casual conversationbetween MSc students (11 participants)
• Focus on 4 speakers (Latin American, LatinAmerican/American, Canadian, Swiss-Irish) – 4 assessment sequences of each type per speaker
– Relative f0-excursion on focus word
• Parallel CA study looking at phonetic shape ofturn2 in relation to turn1
A Second Look – Stance/Face
• Stance: how does S2 position himself to what S1 said? (defensive, supportive, aggressive,…)
• Face: “positive social value a person claims for himself”; “on loan from society” (Goffman, 1981)
– Face orientations:
• Defensive
• Protective
• Aggressive
Preliminary answers
• Yes, there is gradience
• The sequential context plays a decisive role -> work with delta values
• Expand factors to:– Stance
– Face
– Footing (speaker roles: animator, author, principal; Goffman, 1981)
Follow-up Study (ongoing)
• Data: 12 episodes of “A Good Read” (BBC4) with Harriet Gilbert
• Focus on: within- and beyond-category variation conditioned by stance, face, and footing
• Measure: f0 baseline, pitch range, f0-excursion on focus phrase; delta values between turn 2 and turn 1
05
101520253035404550
Agreement Disagreement
%Mean of relative f0-excursions
on focus word in turn 2
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
Agreement Disagreement
%Mean Delta values for relative f0-
excursion on focus phrase t2-t1
-80
-60
-40
-20
0
20
40
60
80
Agreement Disagreement
%Delta relative f0-excursion focus
word turn2-turn1
Where this applies
• Speech recognition & synthesis
– Modelling speech styles, emphasis, and emotions
• Language teaching
– acquisition of 2nd language prosody
• Intercultural communication
• Prosody-Semantics interface
– Tease apart how prosodic and lexical/semantic meaning interact
Take-Home Message
• We need to integrate the variationist and
conversation analytic perspective
– Honour sequential context: use delta values
– Move beyond ‘traditional’ sociolinguistic variables
like age or gender
– Open the picture to face, stance, and footing
References
• Goffman, E. (2003). On Face-Work: An Analysis of Ritual Elements in Social Interaction. Reflections, 4(3), 7-13. • Local, J. (2003). Variable domains and variable relevance: interpreting phonetic exponents. Journal of Phonetics,
31(3–4), 321-339.• Ogden, R. (2006). Phonetics and social action in agreements and disagreements. Journal of Pragmatics, 38(10),
1752-1775. • Podesva, R. J. (2007). Phonation type as a stylistic variable: The use of falsetto in constructing a persona1. Journal
of Sociolinguistics, 11(4), 478-504. • Pomerantz, A. (1984). Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: some features of preferred/dispreferred turn
shapes. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of Social Action - Studies in Conversation Analysis (pp. 57-101). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Sacks, H. (1987). On the preferences for agreement and contiguitiy in sequences in conversation. In J. R. E. Lee & G. Button (Eds.), Talk and Social Organisation (pp. 54-69). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
• Yaeger-Dror, M. (1996). Register as a variable in prosodic analysis: The case of the English negative. Speech Communication, 19(1), 39-60.
• Yaeger-Dror, M. (2002). Register and prosodic variation, a cross language comparison. Journal of Pragmatics, 34(10–11), 1495-1536.
• Yaeger-Dror, M., & Hall-Lew, L. (2002). Presidential use of negation. Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Symposium about Language and Society—Austin.
• Yaeger-Dror, M., Hall-Lew, L., & Deckert, S. (2002). It's not or isn't it? Using large corpora to determine the influences on contraction strategies. Language Variation and Change, 14(1), 79-118.
• Yaeger-Dror, M., Hall-Lew, L., & Deckert, S. (2003). Situational variation in intonational strategies. Language and Computers, 46(1), 209-224.
Thank you for your attention!
Mirjam Elisabeth Eiswirth MSc Applied Linguistics
[email protected]: Dr. Lauren Hall-Lew
PGC UoE30th of May 2014
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