Margaret Zellers

Exploring Interactional Features with Prosodic Patterns

This study adopts a multiple-methods approach to the investigation of prosody, drawing on insights from a quantitative methodology (experimental prosody research) as well as a qualitative one (conversation analysis). We use a k-means cluster analysis to investigate prosodic patterns in conversational sequences involving lexico-semantic contrastive structures. This combined methodology demonstrates that quantitative/statistical methods are a valuable tool for making relatively objective characterizations of acoustic features of speech, while qualitative methods are essential for interpreting the quantitative results. We find that in sequences that maintain global prosodic characteristics across contrastive structures, participants orient to interactional problems, such as determining who has the right to the floor, or avoiding disruption of an ongoing interaction. On the other hand, in sequences in which the global prosody is different across contrastive structures, participants do not generally appear to be orienting to such problems of alignment. Our findings expand the interpretation of “contrastive prosody” that is commonly used in experimental prosody approaches, while providing a way for conversation-analytic research to improve quantification and generalizability of findings.

Combining formal and functional approaches to topic structure

Fragmentation between formal and functional approaches to prosodic variation is an ongoing problem in linguistic research. In particular, the frameworks of the Phonetics of Talk-in-Interaction (PTI) and Empirical Phonology (EP) take very different theoretical and methodological approaches to this kind of variation. We argue that it is fruitful to adopt the insights of both PTI’s qualitative analysis and EP’s quantitative analysis and combine them into a multiple-methods approach. One realm in which it is possible to combine these frameworks is in the analysis of discourse topic structure and the prosodic cues relevant to it. By combining a quantitative and a qualitative approach to discourse topic structure, it is possible to give a better account of the observed variation in prosody, for example in the case of fundamental frequency (F0) peak timing, which can be explained in terms of pitch accent distribution over different topic structure categories. Similarly, local and global patterns in speech rate variation can be better explained and motivated by adopting insights from both PTI and EP in the study of topic structure. Combining PTI and EP can provide better accounts of speech data as well as opening up new avenues of investigation which would not have been possible in either approach alone.

Prosodic Variation and Segmental Reduction and Their Roles in Cuing Turn Transition in Swedish

Prosody has often been identified alongside syntax as a cue to turn hold or turn transition in conversational interaction. However, evidence for which prosodic cues are most relevant, and how strong those cues are, has been somewhat scattered. The current study addresses prosodic cues to turn transition in Swedish. A perception study looking closely at turn changes and holds in cases where the syntax does not lead inevitably to a particular outcome shows that Swedish listeners are sensitive to duration variations, even in the very short space of the final unstressed syllable of a turn, and that they may use pitch cues to a lesser extent. An investigation of production data indicates that duration, and to some extent segmental reduction, demonstrate consistent variation in relation to the types of turn boundaries they accompany, while fundamental frequency and glottalization do not. Taken together, these data suggest that duration may be the primary cue to turn transition in Swedish conversation, rather than fundamental frequency, as some other studies have suggested.

Exploring prosodic and conversational context factors in pitch perception

Listeners use pitch information to contextualize and interpret what they hear in conversation, but contextualization requires a frame of reference in terms of both acoustic information and conversational structure. We investigate how different acoustic features such as fundamental frequency (F0), intensity, and duration, as well as different contexts for listening to speech (i.e. in isolation versus adjacent to another conversational turn) relate to listeners’ perception of pitch in speech. Following a perception experiment in which listeners gave pitch ratings for individual turns or pairs of turns drawn from a corpus, we explore the relationship of prosodic features to listeners’ judgments. While whole-turn F0 appears to be most relevant to judgment of turns in isolation, pitch and intensity in the region of the transition are prioritized in the turn-comparative judgments.

Prosodic Convergence with Spoken Stimuli in Laboratory Data.

Accommodation or convergence between speakers has been shown to occur on a variety of levels of linguistic structure. Phonetic convergence appears to be a very variable phenomenon in conversation, with social roles strongly influencing who accommodates to whom. Since phonetic convergence appears to be strongly under speaker control, it is unclear whether speakers might converge phonetically in a laboratory setting. The current study investigates accommodation of pitch and duration features in data collected in a laboratory setting. While speakers in the study did not converge to spoken stimuli in terms of duration features, they did converge to an extent on pitch features. However, only some information-structure contexts led to convergence, suggesting that even in a laboratory setting, speakers are aware of the discourse implications of their production.