Use Of Prosody Research Articles

White Things: Form, Formalization, and the Use of Prosody

Abstract: The limited prosodic literacy of revamped formalisms perpetuates the whiteness of lyric reading. By prizing ironic distance and elevating the critic as form’s discoverer, the concept of poetic form reinscribes racialized value judgments even where critics hope to valorize nonwhite poetic strategies. Formalism should instead attend to the history that gave poets their sense of form. Nonwhite poets mark how this process of formalization, through which forms become abstracted and bear value, consistently entails racialization. They prompt us, I argue, not to form but to prosodic details whose contingency and phenomenological complexity suspend codes of formalist reading.

Prosodic focus marking in Seoul Korean-speaking children: the use of prosodic phrasing.

Prosodic focus marking in Seoul Korean is known to be achieved primarily through prosodic phrasing, different from the use of prosody for this purpose in many other languages. This study investigates how children use prosodic phrasing for focus-marking purposes in Seoul Korean, compared to adults. Using a picture-matching game, we elicited semi-spontaneous production of SOV sentences in various focus conditions from monolingual Seoul Korean-speaking children aged 4 to 11 years. We found that the children varied prosodic boundaries to distinguish narrow focus from pre-focus and broad focus in a largely adult-like manner at the age of 4 to 5; at this age, they did not distinguish narrow focus from post-focus or contrastive focus using prosodic boundaries, similar to the adults. Their use of the prosodic boundaries in distinguishing the focus conditions was not fully adult-like in terms of frequency until the age of 10 to 11. In conjunction with the findings of previous studies on the acquisition of focus marking in Germanic languages, performed using a similar experimental method, our findings suggest that Seoul Korean-speaking children acquire the use of prosodic phrasing earlier than Dutch-speaking children acquiring the use of pitch accent but slightly later than Stockholm Swedish-speaking children acquiring the use of a prominence-marking high tone. These findings imply that the rate of focus-marking acquisition depends on the transparency of the form-meaning mapping between the phonological cue and focus.

Correlating Language and Music for the Activation of Human Mind

As Heinrich Heine puts it, “Where words leave off, music begins”. Music and language belong to a common origin i.e. sound, a form of energy. In other words, language and music are two sons of the same mother. Language and music both engage the auditory system, utilizing similar neural pathways to process sound and rhythm. Just as language relies on patterns of sounds and syntax to convey meaning, music utilizes melody, harmony, and structure to evoke emotions and communicate messages. A language always talks about the speech sounds that are produced by the vocal cords while music is the outcome of non-oral sounds or sometimes may be the oral sounds. Both language and music have the ability to elicit powerful emotional responses in individuals, stirring feelings of joy, sadness, or nostalgia. The rhythmic and melodic elements in music can enhance language processing by providing a rhythmic framework that aids in memorization and comprehension. Though language and music are not always complementary to each other but one seems incomplete in absence of the other. Language and music share the capacity to convey complex ideas and narratives, allowing us to express our thoughts and experiences in nuanced and creative ways. Studies have shown that exposure to music can improve language skills, including vocabulary acquisition, syntax comprehension, and verbal fluency. The use of prosody, intonation, and rhythm in language mirrors the melodic and rhythmic components of music, highlighting their interconnectedness. Musical training has been found to enhance linguistic abilities, as musicians often demonstrate better pitch discrimination, phonological awareness, and language learning skills. Language and music can both serve as cultural markers, reflecting and preserving the traditions, values, and identities of different communities. The shared neural processes involved in language and music suggest a deep-rooted correlation, as they tap into fundamental mechanisms of auditory perception and cognitive processing. The present research article is a descriptive study on the relationship between language and music and their effects on the mind and body of the human beings. In the first section of this paper, the linguistic aspects that are akin to music have been attempted to be pointed out. Similarly, in the following section, the core of the music has been discussed in context to language. In the third section, a comparative study of language and music has been done on the basis of the points discussed in the preceding sections. Finally, the paper also discusses as how the amalgamation of the two i.e. language and music can be helpful in activating the human mind and the body.

The Dance of Pauses in Poetry Declamation

In poetry declamation, the appropriate use of prosody to cause pleasure is essential. Among the prosodic parameters, pause is one of the most effective to engage the listeners and provide them with a pleasant experience. The declamation of three poems in two varieties of Portuguese by ten Brazilian Portuguese (BP) speakers and ten European Portuguese (EP) speakers, balanced for gender, was used as a corpus for evaluating the degree of pleasantness by listeners from the same language variety. The distributions of pause duration and inter-pause interval (IPI) both varied greatly across the subjects, being the main source of variability and strongly right-tailed. The evaluation of the degree of pleasantness revealed that pause duration predicts degree of pleasantness in EP, whereas IPI predicts degree of pleasantness in BP. Reciters perform a kind of complex “dance”, where sonority between pauses is favored in BP and pause duration in EP.

Just a famous actor sitting in front of a judge: Hugh Grant’s presentation of self in the Leveson inquiry

ABSTRACT With its attempts at humour, loosely controlled expressive behaviour and balance of haughtiness and deference, Hugh Grant’s testimony for the Leveson inquiry is rich territory for the analysis of celebrity self-presentation that complicates the dichotomous paradigm of ‘persona’ versus ‘veridical self’. Through detailed analysis of Grant’s physicality and use of prosody, this article focuses on his performance of status and use of humour during the cross-examination. These are contextualised within his diegetic and interview performances to argue that, in this presentation of self, Grant showcases his comedic performance technique but seems less concerned with presenting a signature set of mannerisms, which scholars have noted conventional star performance entails. Rather, Grant performs his celebrity status through a posture of stiff hauteur, which enables the humour in his self-deprecating remarks, both of which are key elements of his persona.

Continuous speech segmentation by L1 and L2 speakers of English: the role of syntactic and prosodic cues

We investigated how native and fluent users of English segment continuous speech and to what extent they use sound-related and structure-related cues. As suggested by the notion of multi-competence, L1 users are not seen as ideal models with perfect command of English, and L2 users not as lacking in competence. We wanted to see how language experience affects speech segmentation. We had participants listen to extracts of spontaneous spoken English and asked them to mark boundaries between speech segments. We found that in chunking authentic speech, both groups made the most use of prosody, with L1 users relying slightly more on it. However, the groups did not differ in segmentation strategies and performed alike in efficiency and agreement. Results show that in line with multi-competence, native speakers do not have an advantage over fluent speakers in higher-level speech processes, and that the outcome of natural speech comprehension does not significantly depend on the different language experiences at high levels of fluency. We suggest that research on speech segmentation should take natural continuous speech on board and investigate fluent users independently of their L1s to gain a more holistic view of processes and consequences of speech segmentation.

Yes/No Questions in Ẹ̀dó: Structure and Derivation

The aim of this paper is to explain the syntax of yes/no questions in Ẹ̀dó language. In line with its aim, the paper answers two research questions. First, what is the structure of yes/no questions? Second, how is this structure derived? The study relies on primary data from a questionnaire survey and observation of the language in use, as well as secondary data from a textual corpus. The corpus shows Ẹ̀dó forms polar questions in two ways: the use of prosody and five question markers. This paper confirms the position of previous studies; these markers have distinct distributions. Notwithstanding, it posits Ẹ̀dó polar questions have the same structure. This submission is born out of the proposal of a split complementiser system for the language. The paper bases its argument on the lexicon, similarities between movement operations in polar questions and other syntactic processes, and the simultaneous occurrence of question markers and other types of complementisers. Analyses show question markers project a functional phrase in the proposed system; one may stack the phrase to accommodate constructions with two or more question markers. On the question of derivation, the study explains using the concept of phases from the minimalist program. This paper suggests delaying the spell-out of lower phases is more useful for checking and deleting features of the question markers.

Aging and the Perception of Affective and Linguistic Prosody.

Investigations of affective prosodic processing have demonstrated a decline with aging. It is unclear, however, whether this decline affects all or specific emotions. Also, little is known about the ability of syntactic resolution ambiguity with the use of prosody in aging. Twenty older (age range = 70-75) and 20 younger adults (age range = 20-25) performed an affective (happiness, neutrality, sadness, surprise, fear, and anger) and a linguistic (subject/object ambiguities) prosody task. Relative to young participants, older participants faced difficulty decoding affective prosody, particularly negative emotions, and syntactic prosody, in particular the subject reading condition. A marginally positive correlation was found between the affective and syntactic prosody tasks in the group of older individuals, but no gender differences in either prosodic task. The findings of the affective prosody task are discussed under the prism of the Socioemotional Selectivity Theory, whereas general parsing strategies can account for the preference for the object reading condition.

The additive use of prosody and morphosyntax in L2 German

AbstractThis study investigates whether the use of prosodic cues during instruction facilitates the processing of German accusative case markers. Two groups of third semester L1 English learners of L2 German completed Processing Instruction (PI) with aural input: Learners in the PI+P group heard sentences that included focused prosodic cues; learners in the PI group heard sentences with monotone prosody. The effects of training were assessed through an offline comprehension task, a written production task, and an online self-paced reading (SPR) task. The results for the offline tasks showed that the groups were similar with respect to their offline comprehension and production. The SPR task showed that both groups used case markers to interpret word order online to some extent; however, only the PI+P group did so in all conditions. These results suggest that prosody does play a role in (morpho)syntactic processing, and that covert activation of prosodic structures can facilitate processing during online reading tasks.

Page to Stage: An Empirical Study of Foreign Language Learning (FLL) and Motivation Through Playwriting, Readers Theatre, and Stage Production

This article describes a set of lessons used in a university EFL course and presents empirical, classroom-based research. The set of lessons, Page to Stage, was designed to teach English through the use of drama, dramatic activities, and theatre production—more specifically: dramatic adaptation of Japanese folktales, playwriting, readers theatre, and the rehearsal, memorization, and performance of original, student-written plays. At the end of the lesson and course, students were surveyed on their beliefs regarding the lesson’s effects on their motivation, level of English, use of prosody, and confidence when speaking in public. The students’ enjoyment of certain aspects of the lesson as well as the lesson as a whole was also surveyed. Results showed that the students saw self-improvement along all points, while they feel that their motivation and use of prosody improved most. Regarding enjoyment, students most enjoyed (from most enjoyable to least enjoyable) watching other students perform, working together in groups, using Japanese folktales as reference for the playwriting, the readers theatre, the final performance, and playwriting. Students least enjoyed memorizing the scripts in preparation for the final performances. Based on the results, a case is made for the benefits of drama, readers theatre, and theatre production in the EFL classroom.

Prosodic cue weighting in the processing of ambiguous sentences by native English listeners and Korean listeners of English.

Differences in the perception of segmental contrasts by native and non-native listeners have been analyzed as the results of language-specific weightings of acoustic cues in their perception grammar [e.g., Escudero and Boersma, Stud. Second Lang. Acquis. 26, 551-585 (2004)]. However, less attention has been paid to the weighting of prosodic cues. This study investigated the relative importance of four prosodic cues-word duration, pauses, pitch, and intensity-in the resolution of English syntactic ambiguity by native English listeners and Korean learners of English. In a forced-choice processing task, English listeners' disambiguation relied most heavily on pitch, followed by pause and intensity cues, whereas pauses were the only heavily weighted cue for Korean listeners, indicating an influence from their native language. Moreover, Korean listeners' use of prosody for disambiguation was found to be influenced by their age of English acquisition and English proficiency.

Integrating prosody in anticipatory language processing: how listeners adapt to unconventional prosodic cues

ABSTRACT A growing body of research suggests that language users integrate diverse sources of information in processing and adapt to the variability of language at multiple levels. In two visual-world paradigm studies, we explored whether listeners use prosody to predict a resolution to structures with a PP that is structurally ambiguous between a modifier and an instrument interpretation. The first study revealed that listeners predict a referent that is most compatible with the location of a prosodic boundary, casting anticipatory looks to the appropriate object even before the onset of a disambiguating word. The second study indicated that listeners failed to anticipate instrument resolutions when the prosody of non-experimental filler items was unconventional, even though experimental items remained identical to the first study. The results suggest that listeners adjust their predictive processing to the utility of prosodic information according to whether a speaker reliably conforms to the conventional use of prosody.

Processing focus in native and non-native speakers of English: an eye-tracking study in the visual world paradigm

AbstractThis “visual-world” eye-tracking study investigated the processing of focus in English sentences with preverbal only by L2 learners whose L1 was either Cantonese or Dutch, compared to native speakers of English. Participants heard only-sentences with prosodic prominence either on the object or on the verb and viewed pictures containing an object-focus alternative and a verb-focus alternative. We found that both L2 groups showed delayed eye movements to the alternative of focus, which was different from the native speakers of English. Moreover, Dutch learners of English were even slower than Cantonese learners of English in directing fixations to the alternative of focus. We interpreted the delayed fixation patterns in both L2 groups as evidence of difficulties in integrating multiple interfaces in real time. Furthermore, the similarity between English and Dutch in the use of prosody to mark focus hindered Dutch learners’ L2 processing of focus, whereas the difference between English and Cantonese in the realization of focus facilitated Cantonese learners’ processing of focus in English.

Prosodic skills of Spanish-speaking children with developmental language disorder.

Phonological difficulties in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) are well documented. However, abilities regarding prosody, the rhythmic and melodic characteristics of language, have been less widely studied, particularly in Spanish. Moreover, the scant research findings that have been reported are contradictory. These considerations justify our new research into the question, focusing on Spanish-speaking children with DLD. To examine a wide range of prosodic skills among Spanish-speaking children with DLD. To analyse the relationships between prosody and other language measurements. Prosodic skills were assessed through the Spanish version of the Profiling Elements of Prosody in Speech-Communication (PEPS-C) battery. The performance of 19 children aged 5-11 years with DLD was compared with that of a chronological age-matched control group of 19 typically developing children. Language skills were also assessed. There were significant differences between the group with DLD and the control group in terms of skills involving prosody functions and forms: turn-end and chunking signalling, contrastive focus and affect expression and understanding, discriminating and the imitation of prosodic patterns in both words and phrases. Spanish-speaking children with DLD present impairments not only when prosody interacts with language but also in the processing of prosody alone. The study results suggest that prosody is related to lexicon and grammar in children with DLD. The prosodic impairments of Spanish-speaking children with DLD could produce a negative impact on their language functioning and could also relate to their emotional and social difficulties. Consideration should therefore be given to focusing future interventions on prosodic skills in Spanish-speaking children with DLD. What is already known on the subject Although deficits in segmental phonology have been extensively studied in DLD, relatively little research has been conducted into supra-segmental phonology, especially among speakers of Spanish. To our knowledge, only one previous study has analysed the prosodic skills of Spanish-speaking children with DLD, and this only focused on prosody while reading. No analysis was made of the use of prosody in language comprehension and expression. What this study adds to existing knowledge This is the first study to analyse competence in a wide range of prosodic skills among Spanish-speaking children with DLD by using the PEPS-C battery. Spanish-speaking children with DLD present impairments in prosody functions and forms, which are related to other language skills. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? Prosodic impairments among Spanish-speaking children with DLD could contribute to explaining both their language difficulties and their socio-emotional problems. The results obtained suggest that Spanish-speaking children with DLD could benefit from interventions focused on prosody.

The acquisition of prosodic marking of narrow focus in Central Swedish.

We investigated how Central Swedish-speaking four to eleven-year-old children acquire the prosodic marking of narrow focus, compared to adult controls. Three measurements were analysed: placement of the prominence-marking high tone (prominence H), pitch range effects of the prominence H, and word duration. Subject-verb-object sentences were elicited in sentence-medial and sentence-final focus conditions via a semi-spontaneous elicitation task. The children largely performed in an adult-like manner already at four to five: they predominantly added prominence H to focal words and avoided this tone post-focally in both sentence-medial and sentence-final position. The placement or avoidance of prominence H had largely the same effects on pitch range for children and adults. Finally, the four to eight-year-olds also increased the duration of the focal word, similar to adults. Hence, Central Swedish-speaking children master the use of prosody for focus marking at an earlier age, compared to children acquiring a West Germanic language.

Immediate online use of prosody reveals the ironic intentions of a speaker: neurophysiological evidence.

In social interactions, speakers often use their tone of voice ("prosody") to communicate their interpersonal stance to pragmatically mark an ironic intention (e.g., sarcasm). The neurocognitive effects of prosody as listeners process ironic statements in real time are still poorly understood. In this study, 30 participants judged the friendliness of literal and ironic criticisms and compliments in the absence of context while their electrical brain activity was recorded. Event-related potentials reflecting the uptake of prosodic information were tracked at two time points in the utterance. Prosody robustly modulated P200 and late positivity amplitudes from utterance onset. These early neural responses registered both the speaker's stance (positive/negative) and their intention (literal/ironic). At a later timepoint (You are such a great/horrible cook), P200, N400, and P600 amplitudes were all greater when the critical word valence was congruent with the speaker's vocal stance, suggesting that irony was contextually facilitated by early effects from prosody. Our results exemplify that rapid uptake of salient prosodic features allows listeners to make online predictions about the speaker's ironic intent. This process can constrain their representation of an utterance to uncover nonliteral meanings without violating contextual expectations held about the speaker, as described by parallel-constraint satisfaction models.

Prosody, clause typing, and <i>wh</i>-in-situ: Evidence from Mandarin

This paper examines the use of prosody for marking upcoming linguistic material in speech production and for anticipating them in speech perception. More specifically, it examines whether in the absence of any overt morphosyntactic cues in the beginning of an utterance, speakers use prosodic means to mark the clause type (declarative or wh-question) and whether listeners use these prosodic cues to anticipate the clause type. We report the results of a production and an audio gating experiment. The results of the production experiment show that speakers of Mandarin differentiate declaratives from wh-questions right from the onset of the clause by means of duration, F0, and intensity. The results of the audio gating experiment demonstrate that prosody is used by listeners to anticipate the clause type which is intended by the speaker.

Disfluência e narratividade: a importância do olhar prosódico sobre a aquisição da linguagem

A presente resenha parte da fala de Ester Scarpa, que versa sobre o papel da prosódia na aquisição da linguagem. A palestrante concebe a prosódia como um espaço privilegiado de interface entre os níveis linguísticos; dessa forma, os fatos prosódicos são vistos como recursos linguísticos na fase de aquisição da linguagem, estágio de recursos léxico-gramatical limitados. Assim, a prosódia se constitui como espaço de engajamento da criança na subjetivação, no discurso e no diálogo, e é também via de organização das formas linguísticas. A fala contempla três principais tópicos: (i) apresentação dos primeiros sistemas entoacionais de duas crianças; (ii) discussão em torno da prosódia e de disfluências; e (iii) primórdios da coesão entoacional e da narratividade. São apresentados dois conjuntos de dados: um referente ao uso da prosódia em narrativas iniciais e outro referente a hesitação e disfluências.

The Effect of Ambiguity Awareness on Second Language Learners' Prosodic Disambiguation.

Three tasks were reported to examine the effect of ambiguity awareness on Chinese-speaking English learners’ use of prosody in resolving prepositional-phrase attachment ambiguity. In the first (Task 1) and second (Task 2) tasks, listeners were not informed of the syntactic ambiguity. In the third task (Task 3), listeners were given the specific information about syntactic ambiguity. The analysis of the overall accuracy rate showed that before receiving specific information about syntactic ambiguity, learners did not detect the ambiguity within the structure and tended to interpret the sentence in a “good-enough” heuristic to reduce the computational burden. After being aware of the syntactic ambiguity, they could use prosodic cues to resolve the ambiguity. However, the finding that the learners reversed their parsing bias from verb phrase attachment (VP-attachment) toward noun phrase attachment (NP-attachment) indicated their difficulty in integrating prosodic information to syntactic structure efficiently. The analysis of individual accuracy rate demonstrated learners’ individual variations in using prosodic cues. The result suggests that learners’ failure to use prosodic cues may be attributed to a lack of ambiguity awareness and difficulty in information integration, rather than their low sensitivity to prosodic cues.

DİYARBAKIRLI MEHMED FÂ’İK VE MANZUMELERİ

Mehmed Faik (d. 1846), the son of Sheikh Sir Mustafa Safiyyuddin (d. 1864) from Diyarbakir, studied with his father who was the sheikh of the Dervish Convent of Aktas in Bolu. The poet who used the pseudonym Faik in his poems died in Bolu when he was twenty-two years old yet and was buried in the same dervish convent. An encyclopedia article, which evaluates the information in the biographical and similar works about Mehmed Faik, is written. However, Faik's poems, which the sources consider to be a productive poet, have not yet been published. In this study, the verses, which are at the end of the manuscript, “Menâkib-nâme-i Seyh Mustafâ Safi-i Diyârbekri”, which tells the life story of the poet's father, were transferred to the present alphabet and their linguistic translations were given and some evaluations were made. Fâ’ik, raised with culture and dressage of mysticism in the lodge, where his father was a sheikh, said verses in accordance with the classical poetry tradition. Based on his very few poems we have, we can say that he, as a poet who died at such a young age, was successful in terms of content, shape and use of prosody.