Abstract
Interactional approaches to prosody have seen an enormous growth in the last decades. One crucial assumption common to these approaches is that prosodic devices may serve as resources for structuring and organizing an interaction. Methodologically, interactionally informed research of prosody rests upon ethnomethodological conversation analysis and contextualization theory. In this paper, a case study of the Cologne German rising-falling intonation contour serves to illuminate the prevalent methods in the field. The results are discussed with respect to their implications for basic theoretical assumptions about prosody and intonation. Consistent with core assumptions of Interactional Linguistics, they point to the variable and gradient nature of intonational functions that can best be captured in a grammar model that allows for holistic descriptions of linguistic structures.
Highlights
1 Introduction During the last decades, the intersection of prosody and interaction has developed into a field of vital interest for many scholars stemming from the background of Interactional Linguistics, Conversation Analysis, the Phonology for conversation approach, and others
This paper aimed to introduce into the research field of prosody in interaction
It concentrated on the strand of research in the realm of Interactional Linguistics
Summary
The intersection of prosody and interaction has developed into a field of vital interest for many scholars stemming from the background of Interactional Linguistics, Conversation Analysis, the Phonology for conversation approach, and others. G. Auer/di Luzio 1992; Auer/Selting 2001; Barth-Weingarten/Reber/Selting 2010; Couper-Kuhlen/Selting 1996; Local/Wells/Sebba 1985; Local/Kelly/Wells 1986; Selting 1995; Selting/Couper-Kuhlen 2000; for an excellent overview of current research questions see Selting 2010). Auer/di Luzio 1992; Auer/Selting 2001; Barth-Weingarten/Reber/Selting 2010; Couper-Kuhlen/Selting 1996; Local/Wells/Sebba 1985; Local/Kelly/Wells 1986; Selting 1995; Selting/Couper-Kuhlen 2000; for an excellent overview of current research questions see Selting 2010) Despite their differences in concrete research questions, most of the approaches in the realm of interactional prosody share some basic assumptions. As a natural consequence of this aim, one basic methodological assumption that all scholars of prosody in interaction seem to agree upon is that all findings should ideally rely on empirical studies of naturally occurring spoken language. The ways to approach the material are guided by several principles that were first spelled out by Couper-Kuhlen and Selting (1996) and that go back to methods common in ethnomethodological conversation analysis and contextualization research
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