What is Prosody and What Did Early Phonetics Make of it?
Prosody in Practice - Non-segmental Phonetics in Typical and Atypical Speech - Joan Rahilly
Joan Rahilly [+]
Queen's University Belfast
Joan Rahilly is Professor in Linguistics and Phonetics at Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Her research focuses on phonetic and phonological manifestations of speech and language disorders, but she is also pursuing work on literacy acquisition amongst young people in the Northern Irish context.
Description
This chapter provides a working definition and exemplification of the prosodic elements of speech, focusing on the pitch and intonation characteristics which dominate investigations in the field, and including loudness, tempo, rhythm and pause. It shows that, within the overall trajectory of modern phonetics, prosodic characteristics have indeed been neglected compared to segmental aspects, and it will indicate how and why this neglect came about. It outlines the relatively limited set of prosodic functions which were typically identified in earlier work, and the extent to which those functions were seen as important or otherwise in communication.