English Speech Rhythm

Form and function in everyday verbal interaction

Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen | University of Konstanz

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027250377 (Eur) | EUR 120.00

ISBN 9781556192937 (USA) | USD 180.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027285836 | EUR 120.00 | USD 180.00

This monograph reconsiders the question of speech isochrony, the regular recurrence of (stressed) syllables in time, from an empirical point of view. It proposes a methodology for discovering isochrony auditorily in speech and for verifying it instrumentally in the acoustic laboratory. In a small-scale study of an English conversational extract, the gestalt-like rhythmic structures which isochrony creates are shown to have a hierarchical organization. Then in a large-scale study of a corpus of British and American radio phone-in programs and family table conversations, the function of speech rhythm at turn transitions is investigated. It is argued that speech rhythm serves as a metric for the timing of turn transitions in casual English conversation. The articular rhythmic configuration of a transition can be said to contextualize the next turn as, generally speaking, affiliative or disaffiliative with the prior turn. The empirical investigation suggests that speech rhythm patterns at turn transitions in everyday English conversation are not random occurrences or the result of a social-psychological adaptation process but are contextualization cues which figure systematically in the creation and interpretation of linguistic meaning in communication.

[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 25] 1993. x, 346 pp.

Publishing status: Available
Published online on 8 April 2011

https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.25

Table of Contents

Contents | p. v

Table of Figures | p. ix

Introduction | p. 1

Is there rythm in speech? | p. 5

Discovering rythm in English speech | p. 37

The hierachical organization of speech rythm | p. 79

Analyzing speech rythm at turn transitions | p. 115

Accounting for speech rythm at turn transitions | p. 163

Interpreting speech rythm at sequence-external junctures | p. 197

Interpreting speech rythm at seuqnce-internal junctures | p. 221

Interpreting speech rytm in specific activity sequences | p. 269

Conclusion | p. 297

Appendix I: Instrumental measurements of perceptually isochronous sequences | p. 299

Appendix II: Instrumental measurements of perceptually non-isochronous sequences | p. 305

Index of Authors and subjects | p. 335

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