LINGUIST List 18.2726
Wed Sep 19 2007
Diss: Text/Corpus Linguistics: Heinz: 'Text Type Prosody. A corpus...'
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1. Matthias
Heinz,
Text Type Prosody. A corpus-assisted study on prosodic patterns specific to text types in Italian, with special reference to French
Message 1: Text Type Prosody. A corpus-assisted study on prosodic patterns specific to text types in Italian, with special reference to French
Date: 19-Sep-2007
From: Matthias Heinz <matthias.heinzuni-tuebingen.de>
Subject: Text Type Prosody. A corpus-assisted study on prosodic patterns specific to text types in Italian, with special reference to French
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Institution: Chemnitz University of Technology
Program: Department of Romance Languages
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2003
Author: Matthias Heinz
Dissertation Title: Text Type Prosody. A corpus-assisted study on prosodic patterns specific to text types in Italian, with special reference to French
Linguistic Field(s):
Text/Corpus Linguistics
Subject Language(s): French (fra)
Italian (ita)
Language Family(ies): Romance
Dissertation Director:
Harro Stammerjohann
Rainer Schlösser
Stephan Habscheid
Dissertation Abstract:
Which factors can be regarded as essential for the prosodic differentiationof oral text varieties? The study investigates this question on the basisof a corpus of recordings of the text genres fairy-tale in Italian (fiaba)and radio news reports in Italian and French (giornale radio, radiojournal).
Starting from the assumption that every spoken utterance is characterizedby prosodic features, at minimum rhythmic and melodic patterns, it can beshown that the specific combination of those features favors recognition ofcertain utterance or text types - even when the recognition of lexicalcontent is impaired on the part of the hearer. Those cases are clearlydescribed by Fónagy (1978): "[I]t is possible to identify the type of genreof communication that is being transmitted, even in situations whereneither semantic information nor contextual cues are available. If theradio has been turned on in a neighbouring room, we can not only identifycorrectly the source of the communication, but we can recognize whether thenews is being broadcast [or] a fairy tale is being told [...]".
Although the effect of this prosodic marking of text types seemsintuitively clear and perceptually relevant as a Gestalt, singling outindividual prosodic parameters turns out to be rather complex. The elementsidentified as essential for prosodic text type patterns are the temporalparameters pausing, fluency, and tempo as well as intonational factors(with tempo and overall intonational structuring resulting in especiallycharacteristic patterns). After an overview of previous research, thosefactors are given a detailed empirical analysis based on the corpus. Theirrelevance for the recognition of text types is then tested by means of aperception experiment. The results are discussed in the more generaltheoretic context of language and text perception.
Findings include (a) evidence for a clear prosodic differentiation of texttypes both within Italian and, as contrastive analysis shows,crosslinguistically (Italian and French); (b) indications for the cognitiverelevance of a prosodic text type competence (embedded in a more generaltextual competence) favoring fast hearer recognition of text types even incases where the input is deficient.
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