The Music of Everyday Speech

Most linguists who do discourse analysis are handicapped by the fact that they have no way of recording or transcribing what is known as prosody - the tempo, rhythm, volume, and intonation of spoken language. In any spoken interaction, the prosody is a central and meaningful component of the exchange. However, since English does not encode prosody, transcribed texts usually omit prosodic features. Moreover, theorists of prosody tend to be phonologists and phoneticians who are highly technical in their descriptions. Recently there has been a growing interest among discourse analysts in incorporating the crucial element of prosody into the anaysis of spoken language. These studies have tended to focus on specific aspects of prosody rather than presenting an over-all framework within which future analysis might continue.

This volume establishes such a framework: addressing many of the critical limitations in traditional prosodic analysis, Wennerstrom considers the role of prosody in a variety of discourse genres. Using naturally occuring data, she demonstrates how the examination of prosody can enhance the analysis of verbal discourse. She discusses genres like causal conversation, oral narratives, courtroom testimony, lectures, and newscasts - in an attempt to make prosody more accessible to discourse analysts from varying backgrounds. Her main goal is to show that prosody provides more information than lexico-grammatical structure alone, and that prosodic analysis can enrich and augment what previous discourse analysts have achieved. As a textbook for graduate students, as well as a reference and how-to book on the necessary considerations and practical realities of discourse analysis, this book is of tremendous importance to the field. The volume also contains special contributions from four prominent discourse analysts and will shed new light on many theoretical issues that have been the source of much contention in recent years.