Prosody in Conversation
Interactional Studies

These essays study the role of prosody in everyday English, German, and Italian conversation.

Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen (Edited by), Margret Selting (Edited by)

9780521024105, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 13 February 2006

484 pages, 100 b/w illus. 1 table
21.6 x 14 x 2.9 cm, 0.613 kg

"This is a compelling, innovative, and outstandingly well-edited collection; it deserves to be read not only by those interested in all aspects of prosody, but also by those studying conversation...and other forms of language use in interaction." Paul Drew, Language in Society

The essays in this volume are all original contributions dealing in one way or another with the analysis of prosody - primarily intonation and rhythm - and the role it plays in everyday conversation. They take as their methodological starting point the contention that the study of prosody must begin with genuine interactional rather than pre fabricated laboratory data. Through close empirical analysis of recorded material from genuine English, German, and Italian conversations, the prosody emerges here as a strategy deployed by interactants in the management of turn-taking and floor-holding; in the negotiation of conversational activities such as repair, assessments, announcements, reproaches, and news receipts; and in the keying of the tone or modality of interactional sequences.

List of contributors
Foreword by John J. Cumperz
Introduction
1. Towards an interactional perspective on prosody and a prosodic perspective on interaction Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen and Margret Selting
2. On the prosody and syntax of turn-continuations Peter Auer
3. Ending up in Ulster: prosody and turn-taking in English dialects Bill Wells and Sue Peppé
4. Affiliating and disaffiliating with continuers: prosodic aspects of recipiency Frank Ernst Müller
5. Conversational phonetics: some aspects of news receipts in everyday talk John Local
6. Prosody as an activity-type distinctive cue in conversation: the case of so-called 'astonished' questions in repair initiation Margret Selting
7. The prosodic contextualization of moral work: an analysis of reproaches in 'why'-formats Susanne Günther
8. On rhythm in everyday German conversation: beat clashes in assessment utterances Susanne Uhmann
9. The prosody of repetition: on quoting and mimicry Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen
10. Working on young children's utterances: prosodic aspects of repetition during picture labelling Clare Tarplee
11. Informings and announcements in their environment: prosody within a multi-activity work setting Marjorie Harness Goodwin
Indexes.

Subject Areas: Sociolinguistics [CFB]