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Article published In:
Chinese Language and Discourse
Vol. 15:1 (2024) ► pp.1–26

The devil lies in prosody

Prosodic veins of the Chinese discourse marker Haole 好了 at the left and right periphery

ORCID logo | Nanjing University
ORCID logo | Nanjing University | Harbin Engineering University
 | Harbin Engineering University
 | Harbin Engineering University
 | Dalian Scientific Test and Control Technology Institute
The current paper reports on a study investigating the prosodic features of the Chinese discourse marker haole. The data were collected from 14 native Chinese speakers who participated in two recording sessions designed by the authors. The results indicate that haole as a discourse marker occurring at different syntactic positions is prosodically distinct. Specifically, in some cases, haole at the left periphery (LP) is prosodically independent of its following utterance, while haole at the right periphery (RP) is always prosodically attached to its preceding utterance. In addition, haole at LP is higher, larger, and longer than haole at RP, respectively, concerning pitch, intensity, and duration. The study suggests that these differences are closely related to the pragmatic functions of haole as a discourse marker in oral interaction. The findings above may shed light on the incorporation of prosody into the pragmatic analysis of discourse markers and conversation management in general.
Keywords: discourse marker, left periphery, right periphery, prosody, pragmatic function
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Pragmatic function of prosody
    • 2.2Studies on haole
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Participants and corpus
    • 3.2Equipment
    • 3.3Procedure
    • 3.4Data analysis
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Prosodic independence
    • 4.2Pitch
    • 4.3Intensity
    • 4.4Duration and vowel quality
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 17 February 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cld.22006.wan
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