Methodological Imperatives for Investigating the Phonetic Organization and Phonological Structures of Spontaneous Speech

Local, John; Walker, Gareth

doi:10.1159/000090093

Cited by 176 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Rather, we think that to support any such claims it would be necessary to base the analysis on explicit and close attention to the totality of the design of the talk (e.g., sequential organization, turn construction lexis, syntax, phonetic detail). As we have argued elsewhere (Local and Walker 2005; see also papers in Couper- Ford 2004 andCouperKuhlen andSelting 1996), if we wish to make a claim that some auditorily available phonetic characteristic is an important element in the functioning and structuring of a particular turn or sequence, the analysis is required to provide evidence that participants themselves treat it, or orient to it, as important. This liberates us from analytic intuition and quasi-psychological speculation as to the motivating force behind the behavior in question.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stance and affect in conversation: On the interplay of sequential and phonetic resources

Local

Walker

2008

Text &Amp; Talk - An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language, Discourse Communication Studies

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Abstract:Linguists, and other analysts of discourse, regularly make appeal to affectual states in determining the meaning of utterances. We examine two kinds of sequence which occur in everyday conversation. The first involves one participant making an explicit lexical formulation of a co-participantÕs affectual state (e.g. Ôyou sound happyÕ, ÔdonÕt sound so depressedÕ). The second involves responses to Ôpositive informingsÕ and Ônegative informingsÕ. Through consideration of sequential organization, participant orientation and phonetic detail we suggest that the attribution of analytic categories of affect is problematic. We argue that phonetic characteristics which might be thought to be associated with affect may better accounted for with reference to the management of particular sequentialinteractional tasks. The finding that stance does not inhere in any single turn at talk or any single linguistic aspect leads us to suggest that future investigations into stance and affect will need to pay attention simultaneously to matters of both linguistic-phonetic and sequential organisation.Keywords: stance, affect, conversation, sequence, phonetics, intonation 4 Stance and affect in conversation: on the interplay of sequential and phonetic resources* 1.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stance and affect in conversation: On the interplay of sequential and phonetic resources

Local

Walker

2008

Text &Amp; Talk - An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language, Discourse Communication Studies

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“…Local & Walker, 2005). Our focus is on short utterances produced by a second Speaker, either in the clear or in overlap, which are preceded by a more extended turn from a first Speaker and immediately followed by another tum from that first Speaker.…”

Section: Motivation For the Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Pitch Contour Matching and Interactional Alignment across Turns: An Acoustic Investigation

2012

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A bstractIn o rd e r to ex p lo re th e influence o f c o n te x t on th e p hon etic design o f talk-in-interaction, w e investigated th e pitch characteristics o f s h o rt tu m s (in se rtio n s) th a t a re produced by on e Speaker betw een turns from a n o th e r Speaker. W e investigated th e hypothesis th a t th e Speaker o f th e insertion designs h e r tu rn as a pitch match to th e p rio r turn in o rd e r to align w ith th e previous speaker's agenda, w h ereas non-matching displays th a t th e Speaker o f th e insertion is non-aligning, fo r exam ple to initiate a n e w action. D a ta w e re taken from th e A M I m eeting corpus, focusing on th e spontaneous talk o f first-language English participants. Using sequential analysis, 177 insertions w e r e classified as e ith e r aligning o r non-aligning in acco rd an ce w ith definitions o f these term s in th e C o n versa tio n Analysis literatu re. T h e degree o f sim ilarity betw een th e pitch c o n to u r o f th e insertion and th a t o f th e p rio r speaker's tu m w as m easured, using a n e w techn iqu e th a t integrates norm alized FO and in tensity inform ation. T h e results show ed th a t aligning insertions w e r e significantly m o re sim ilar to th e im m ediately preceding tu m , in term s o f pitch co n to u r, than w e r e non-aligning insertions. This Supports th e v ie w th a t cho ice o f pitch c o n to u r is managed locally, ra th e r than by re fe ren ce to an intonational lexicon.

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“…Local, Kelly & Wells (1986), for example, argue that centralisation of vowels, combined with particular duration characteristics over the last metrical foot of turns, is implicated in unproblematic turn-transition. Ogden (2001Ogden ( , 2004 demonstrates that non-modal phonation (in particular, creak, breathiness, whisper) plays a role in managing turn-taking in Finnish; and Local & Walker (2005) show that different kinds of articulatory and laryngeal characteristics (e.g. complete glottal closure and hold versus its absence), in combination with particular lexical items, mark that a speaker has finished talking or projects that there is more talk to come from that speaker.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How phonetic features project more talk

Local¹,

Walker²

2012

Journal of the International Phonetic Association

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Investigations into the management of turn-taking have typically focussed on pitch and other prosodic phenomena, particularly pitch-accents. Here, non-pitch phonetic features and their role in turn-taking are described. Through sustained phonetic and interactional analysis of a naturally occurring, 12-minute long telephone call between two adult speakers of British English, sets of talk-projecting and turn-projecting features are identified. Talk-projecting features include the avoidance of durational lengthening, articulatory anticipation, continuation of voicing, the production of talk in maximally close proximity to a preceding point of possible turn-completion, and the reduction of consonants and vowels. Turn-projecting features include the converse of each of the talk-projecting features, and two other distinct features: release of plosives at the point of possible turn-completion, and the production of audible outbreaths. We show that features of articulatory and phonatory quality and duration are relevant factors in the design and treatment of talk as talk-or turn-projective.

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Methodological Imperatives for Investigating the Phonetic Organization and Phonological Structures of Spontaneous Speech

Cited by 176 publications

References 28 publications

Stance and affect in conversation: On the interplay of sequential and phonetic resources

Stance and affect in conversation: On the interplay of sequential and phonetic resources

Pitch Contour Matching and Interactional Alignment across Turns: An Acoustic Investigation

How phonetic features project more talk

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