Length Loudness Expressive Phonology

- 207 - Labov’s treatment of expressive phonology, and applying it to another variety of English, spoken by young non-native speakers of Panjabi origin. But we will begin with a few basic points, quoting freely from Cruttenden 1986: The prosody of connected speech may be analysed and described in terms of the variation of a large number of prosodic features. There are, however, three features which are most consistently used for linguistic purposes, either singly or jointly. These three features are pitch, length, and loudness. Pitch concerns the varying height of the pitch of the voice over one syllable or over a number of successive syllables; length concerns the relative durations of a number of successive syllables or the duration of a given syllable in one environment relative to the duration of the same syllable in another environment; loudness concerns changes of loudness within one syllable or the relative loudness of a number of successive syllables. The terms pitch, length, and loudness refer to features perceived by listeners; ... Cruttenden 1986:2 Although, as explained here so succinctly by Cruttenden, there seems to be no problem in differentiating between these three prosodic features, in practice it is a different story; the three are closely interrelated. The listener certainly perceives variations in pitch, length, and loudness but is not always aware precisely which of the three features or combination of features she is responding to, unless she happens to be a phonetician. For example, judgments about comparative pitch levels are affected by the level of intensity at which these judgments are made; they depend, also, on the individual listener who is making the judgments, and even on hisher physical surroundings see Crystal 1969:109. Then again, listeners not only perceive differences in vocal-chord vibrations, they also perceive the higher harmonics of such sounds; these are not heard as identifiable pitches, but as differences of sound quality. Similarly, with loudness and intensity, listeners certainly react to differences of intensity “at the different frequencies of the spectra of sounds”; however, these differences are not perceived as differences “of loudness in the sense in which” they “hear one syllable or utterance as louder than another. Rather, they are perceived as differences of sound quality”; see O’Connor 1973:102.

6.3.1 Length

Length can be viewed as “the length of time a speaker decides to continue to produce a linguistic unit, as the duration of the acoustic correlates of the unit on a spectrogram, or as the length of time during which a listener hears that unit” Cruttenden 1986:2. However, this is not as simple as it sounds: when we come to measure the duration of certain - 208 - syllables we discover that syllable boundaries are to some extent arbitrary; there is a difference in the phonological, or what Cruttenden calls the “innate” length of vowels e.g. the vowel in peat is generally longer than that in pit; and finally, the last syllable before a pause is often lengthened. How aware is the listener of these influences, and how do they affect hisher subjective judgment as to whether a particular syllable is lengthened or not?

6.3.2 Loudness

Loudness, as perceived by the listener, “is related to the breath-force which a speaker uses. The acoustic correlate of loudness is intensity or the amount of energy which is present in a sound or sequence of sounds” Cruttenden 1986:3. Here, also, there are complicating factors: open vowels are acoustically of greater intensity than close vowels and listeners “must in some way allow for this when interpreting relative loudness for other purposes”; the relationship of absolute intensity to perceived loudness “is by no means linear a sound has to be much more than doubled in absolute intensity before it will be heard as twice as loud and moreover the relationship is different at different frequencies”; then there is the matter of the communicative purpose itself - “I may shout because I am angry or I may make my accented syllables much louder than my unaccented syllables as an emphatic device” p. 3. Experiments have shown that accented syllables are more regularly indicated by length and pitch than by loudness, though the listener often interprets this as stress, or loudness. Then there is the opposite of loudness where, in order to achieve “special prominence”, a speaker uses a combination of lowered pitch and whisper which is highly effective, and perceived by the listener as significant Charleston 1960:23.

6.3.3 Pitch