The role of prosody for the expression of illocutionary types. The prosodic system of questions in spoken Italian and French according to Language into Act Theory
This article presents a corpus-based study of the correlations between prosodic contours and question speech acts in Italian and French from the perspective of the Language into Act Theory (L-AcT). A rich taxonomy of question illocutionary types is derived from two comparable corpora of informal spe...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2023-04-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Communication |
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| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2023.1124513/full |
| _version_ | 1797845518285537280 |
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| author | Emanuela Cresti Massimo Moneglia |
| author_facet | Emanuela Cresti Massimo Moneglia |
| author_sort | Emanuela Cresti |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This article presents a corpus-based study of the correlations between prosodic contours and question speech acts in Italian and French from the perspective of the Language into Act Theory (L-AcT). A rich taxonomy of question illocutionary types is derived from two comparable corpora of informal speech taken from the C-ORAL-ROM collection and illustrated through prototypic examples. The number of questions in speech is evaluated as <10% of utterances. Despite their syntactic and accentual differences, the two languages share comparable pragmatic values conveyed by defined prosodic variations. Total questions, which can be answered with yes or no, are expected with canonical rising contours. Still, a good percentage shows the so-called declarative prosody (26% in FR and 36% in IT). They have been supposed to be biased by presupposing the proposition's truth and considered Requests for confirmations instead of genuinely Seeking for information acts. But presupposition, depending on intentional states, is hard to be detected, and no clear linguistic correlation was found. The corpus-based study of the prosody/pragmatics relation allows a better understanding of the system. Total questions should be framed within the larger category of Directives aimed at the addressee's linguistic behavior, which does not foresee seeking information as the only goal. When the speaker makes a hypothesis on what he asks—that is not an actual presupposition—he performs a Request for confirmation. This is true in most Total questions, and prosody complies with the canonical contour. In contrast, declarative contours correlate with corpus contexts in which the speaker does not make any hypothesis but puts pressure on the addressee (Challenging Questions). Partial questions genuinely seek information and comprise Open questions, which are verbless utterances where the addressee is requested to freely provide information on a given topic. Tag questions, Double questions, and Alternative questions correspond to Illocutionary patterns that, according to L-AcT, are composed of two pragmatic units framed within one prosodic strategy. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-09T17:40:18Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-1b02b8b8f07d4a549861cbd99bdcaa36 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2297-900X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-09T17:40:18Z |
| publishDate | 2023-04-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Communication |
| spelling | doaj.art-1b02b8b8f07d4a549861cbd99bdcaa362023-04-17T05:36:53ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Communication2297-900X2023-04-01810.3389/fcomm.2023.11245131124513The role of prosody for the expression of illocutionary types. The prosodic system of questions in spoken Italian and French according to Language into Act TheoryEmanuela CrestiMassimo MonegliaThis article presents a corpus-based study of the correlations between prosodic contours and question speech acts in Italian and French from the perspective of the Language into Act Theory (L-AcT). A rich taxonomy of question illocutionary types is derived from two comparable corpora of informal speech taken from the C-ORAL-ROM collection and illustrated through prototypic examples. The number of questions in speech is evaluated as <10% of utterances. Despite their syntactic and accentual differences, the two languages share comparable pragmatic values conveyed by defined prosodic variations. Total questions, which can be answered with yes or no, are expected with canonical rising contours. Still, a good percentage shows the so-called declarative prosody (26% in FR and 36% in IT). They have been supposed to be biased by presupposing the proposition's truth and considered Requests for confirmations instead of genuinely Seeking for information acts. But presupposition, depending on intentional states, is hard to be detected, and no clear linguistic correlation was found. The corpus-based study of the prosody/pragmatics relation allows a better understanding of the system. Total questions should be framed within the larger category of Directives aimed at the addressee's linguistic behavior, which does not foresee seeking information as the only goal. When the speaker makes a hypothesis on what he asks—that is not an actual presupposition—he performs a Request for confirmation. This is true in most Total questions, and prosody complies with the canonical contour. In contrast, declarative contours correlate with corpus contexts in which the speaker does not make any hypothesis but puts pressure on the addressee (Challenging Questions). Partial questions genuinely seek information and comprise Open questions, which are verbless utterances where the addressee is requested to freely provide information on a given topic. Tag questions, Double questions, and Alternative questions correspond to Illocutionary patterns that, according to L-AcT, are composed of two pragmatic units framed within one prosodic strategy.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2023.1124513/fullquestionsprosodyspeech actsillocutionary forcespoken corporaItalian |
| spellingShingle | Emanuela Cresti Massimo Moneglia The role of prosody for the expression of illocutionary types. The prosodic system of questions in spoken Italian and French according to Language into Act Theory Frontiers in Communication questions prosody speech acts illocutionary force spoken corpora Italian |
| title | The role of prosody for the expression of illocutionary types. The prosodic system of questions in spoken Italian and French according to Language into Act Theory |
| title_full | The role of prosody for the expression of illocutionary types. The prosodic system of questions in spoken Italian and French according to Language into Act Theory |
| title_fullStr | The role of prosody for the expression of illocutionary types. The prosodic system of questions in spoken Italian and French according to Language into Act Theory |
| title_full_unstemmed | The role of prosody for the expression of illocutionary types. The prosodic system of questions in spoken Italian and French according to Language into Act Theory |
| title_short | The role of prosody for the expression of illocutionary types. The prosodic system of questions in spoken Italian and French according to Language into Act Theory |
| title_sort | role of prosody for the expression of illocutionary types the prosodic system of questions in spoken italian and french according to language into act theory |
| topic | questions prosody speech acts illocutionary force spoken corpora Italian |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2023.1124513/full |
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