The Evaluative Use of Prosodic Features

- 222 - A or Story B. Only in Story F is there anything approaching rhythmic patterns in his speech. 7. No significant changes in voice quality have been noted. 8. Clearly, he does use the features length, loudness and pitch in his productions, but not often expressively. As we have seen, there is no such thing as a Panjabi English speech style; each subject has hisher own distinctive style, and the subjects vary enormously in the extent to which they use prosodic features expressively. Shvinder is the most successful, and Shazia and Fehdah the least. It is one thing to use the features length, loudness, and pitch in speech productions and another to use them effectively; the features by themselves do not mean anything. As we have said above, they must be related to both the overall message being conveyed to the hearer and also to the pragmatic interpretation of the utterance in its local context. Some subjects have still a long way to go in acquiring an understanding of how English intonation really works.

6.3.7 The Evaluative Use of Prosodic Features

We will now look in more detail at some Story A data from Shvinder and Sakander and see how prosodic features work together with other evaluative devices in specific utterances. Shvinder The most obvious feature of all Shvinder’s narratives is the wide pitch range, or key, which she uses. Its immediate effect on the hearer is to focus hisher attention on the story being told. Figure 6.1 p. 211 shows a range of 150-500+Hz, and we have already explained, on page 210, the break in the trace between 300 and 425, while she is saying “there any”, and her voice goes way up above the 500Hz mark. This is perhaps an extreme example; however, all her utterances, recorded and analysed by CECIL, show very few level contours. Typically we find in the traces a combination of rises, falls, fall-rises, rise-falls, rise-fall- rises, and rise-fall-rise-fall contours. Within the conversational passages, particularly, she exploits this wide key for dramatic effects, and it is only in the Orientation and Coda sections that she narrows her “top line” to below 450Hz. Johns-Lewis 1986 has the following to say about this use of pitch heightening: The speculative suggestion is, then, that heightening of pitch characteristics is attuned to attention-states in the hearer-organism, pitch heightening having the function of focusing and maintaining attention. p. 217 - 223 - Her story introducer: 1 ONE DAY MR. WO-ONG WENT INto a HOUSE consists of two intonation groups with the nuclear accent on the final stressed syllable in each case. There is nothing unusual about this, nor about the intonation contours she uses which clearly signal the fact that she is beginning her story figure 6.4 gives the acoustic record of the first intonation group. In our transcription we have coded it as an example of the use of expressive phonology; the rise-fall on “one” and the levelling out on “day” focus the hearer’s attention on the temporal lead-in to the story, and pave the way for the events that follow. The next example see also figure 6.5, p. 225 illustrates her use of rhythm, not by the typical English use of long and short syllables, but by brief pauses between accented syllables: 5 But WHEN HE LOOKED IN the CUPboard 6 it WAS NO-OT THERE. Those syllables perceived as having been uttered with greatest intensity correspond with those analysed as loudest by CECIL, although the lengthened syllable NO-OT and the utterance final THERE are also given prominence by the slowing of the tempo, and the high rise-fall intonation on “not” followed by the final low rise-fall on “there”. Figures 6.1 and 6.5 show the interrelationship of rise-fall intonation, length and stress on focused items NO-OT and RI-ICE, in 6 and 4: 4 “Is THERE ANY UM RI-ICE left?” Although phonetically these are obviously rise-falls, phonologically, they could probably be equated with O’Connor and Arnold’s simple fall. Both utterances also commence with a high rise followed by a gradual fall probably “falls” in O’Connor and Arnold’s terms but they end differently, in that the statement ends in a low rise-fall and the question in a low fall-rise. They are expressively marked by these pitch changes and we are left in no doubt that the lack of rice must be a significant problem which needs a resolution before the story is done. - 224 - Figure 6.4 The initial high rise in 4 terminates on the quantifier “any”, which is used evaluatively, and in 6 on “looked”, which focuses on the temporal orientation of the state of affairs being described. In fact, we can generalize by saying that Shvinder uses high rising tones when she wishes to focus on a particular lexical item or evaluative device such as the negative “not”. For example, in the following: 8 “DARling dear THERE ISN’T ANy rice in the CUPboard.” - 225 - Figure 6.5 there are high rising tones on the DAR- of “darling”, “isn’t” and the CUP- of “cupboard”. “Darling dear” illustrates the evaluative use of direct address and a striking lexical combination; the negative “isn’t” is also evaluative, and so is the repetition of the lexical item “cupboard” see figures 6.6 and 6.7. There are low rise-falls on “there”, the heavily stressed existential subject, and the quantifier “any”. These seem to have a similar function to that of the high rise-falls and high rises, i.e. one of focus. - 226 - Figure 6.6 The unaccented low fall-rise on “rice” links it with the following intonation group, as does the low rise on “dear”. We noted above a similar low fall-rise on the word “left” at the end of the question in 4; this seems to convey the same perceptible sense of incompleteness and so also has a linking function, anticipating the answer which finally comes in 8. - 227 - Figure 6.7 We can cite other examples which add weight to these tentative suggestions see figure 6.8: 11 And he said, 12 “THERE’S NONE RICE LEFT.” 13 “SO WHAT can we DO-O?” - 228 - Figure 6.8 This looks like a classic O’Connor and Arnold Rising Head + High Falling nucleus and the perceived prominence on the negative quantifier “none” is definitely one of pitch height, not stress: a fall onto “rice”; but that on “what” cannot be so clearly explained: the low fall- rise on “so what” links it to the following intonation group, with the rise on “what” leading up to the high rise on the more heavily stressed “can we do”, thus bridging the perceived pause. - 229 - Figure 6.9 “Can we” carries the greatest amplitude of all, the result of the greater amplitude of open vowels see p. 208 and yet was perceived as less prominent than “do”, probably because the peaking and long fall 200Hz on “do”, coupled with the slowing down in tempo the vowel of “do” is 0.400secs., emphasize, and thus evaluate, the need for action. The answer is also delivered in a slow tempo see figure 6.9: 14 “WELL I DON’T KNO-OW,” 15 SAID Mr. WONG. - 230 - Figure 6.10 The high rise-fall on “well”, perceived as a fall, carries the greatest amplitude, focusing on the evaluative interjection which expresses resignation and delays the negative answer. But only the vowel in “know” is really long; so, it is possibly the brief pauses, the high jump up on “I” and the long fall on “don’t” which are contributing to this sense of slowing down and finality. The heavy stress and low, almost level, tone on “know”, with a slight rise towards the end, suggest a veiled challenge, as well as an air of finality. - 231 - Figure 6.11 Low level pitches or falling glides, linked with nuclear tones andor lengthened vowels, are consistently used as a signal of termination: a good example is A81 see figure 6.10: 81 So the CUStomers WERE VERy HAPpy inDEED. Here we have a low rise-fall on the in- of “indeed” and a low fall on -DEED which is perceived as nuclear. - 232 - Figure 6.12 Again, there is a high rise-fall which focuses on the lexical intensifier “very” and this is followed by lower pitches and decreasing intensity to give a slowing down effect and an air of finality. The trace for “happy” shows a considerable jump up on the HAP- followed by an immediate fall and a low rise on -py. The Coda shows even more clearly how she uses pitch, intensity and duration as slowing down mechanisms to signal that her story is ending see figure 6.11: - 233 - 82 And MR. WONG LIVED HAPpier EVer A-AFter. This is a very common pattern cf. O’Connor 1973:190, 242ff.. The first intonation group is the highest, but all the tones used are below 350Hz and the utterance is characterized by predominantly level tones; only on “happier” do we get a significant rise. The HAP- of “happier” is perceived as the most prominent syllable in the intonation group but the -er carries both the greatest intensity and the highest pitch. This is followed by a pause, decreasing intensity and a drop of some 75Hz on to “ever”, which carries level tones on both syllables. “After” tails off almost to a whisper which is uttered at a frequency of below 200Hz; here the perceived prominence is one of length and deliberation which is accentuated by the change in voice quality. In this example there appear to be minor discrepancies between what is actually perceived and what is recorded by CECIL cf. comments on p. 210. We have been describing here some of the general characteristics of Shvinder’s speech and also what we believe to be the evaluative use of expressive phonology; features of length, loudness, pitch, rhythm, and voice quality are used for particular purposes in telling a story, e.g. opening, closing, or focus, and for signalling to the hearer exactly what these purposes are. But does Shvinder always get it right? In particular, does she ever use a wide key when a narrower one would be more appropriate to the sentiments being expressed at that moment? The answer is “yes” and there are two such examples in the section of Story A we have been discussing we will reproduce the whole section to give the context: NARRATIVE EVALUATION Conj Subj Aux Verb Comp Loc Temp 7 And he TOLD his WIFE “DARling dear, 8 THERE ISN’T aNY rice in the CUPboard.” INTPhon INTD.Sp INTD.Ad INTLex INTQua INTRep COMNeg 9 SHE SAID, 10 “BUT we HAD to OPen the SHOP toDAY.” INTD.Sp COMMod 11 And he said, - 234 - NARRATIVE EVALUATION 12 “THERE ‘S LEFT.” NONE RICE INTD.Sp INTQua COMNeg 13 “SO we can DO-O?” WHAT INTPhon INTD.Sp COMMod COMQue 14 “WELL I DON’T KNO-OW,” INTPhon INTD.Sp INTInt COMNeg 15 Mr. WONG. SAID In 10 above she uses a wide key with rising and falling contours on “shop today”; “shop” is the nuclear syllable and there is a pause after “had to” which splits the utterance into two intonation groups. See figure 6.12; the contour is not complete because “shop today” is virtually voiceless. The rising tones and light skipping rhythm suggest the interpretation: “Isn’t it fun, we had to open the shop today” But that is not the correct interpretation from the context: Mrs. Wong is actually making a protest about the impossibility of not opening the shop as usual. Shvinder says “had” when she means “have” but the intention is still clear enough. A more appropriate intonation pattern would be something like: \ 10a BUT we HAD to OPen the SHOP toDAY with a high-fall on the nucleus “had” and low pitches on the following syllables. Similarly with 12 see figure 6.8 which we have described along with 13. Although the high rise and long fall on “can we do” are evaluative in 13, in that they expressively present the Wongs’ dilemma in a “storybook”, rather than “real world”, intonation pattern, the almost casual high-rising tone on “none”, in 12, makes the whole thing into something of a joke; whereas a more appropriate pattern would be a narrow key with falling tones to contrast - 235 - with the wide key and rising tones of 13. We will be saying more about “storybook” intonation later. A quotation from Cruttenden 1986 makes a general observation on the contrast between falling and rising tones which is applicable here, in that it backs up the subjective comments above: The high-falling and low-falling tones both have “serious” overtones, the higher tone being more “involved” and the lower tone more “business-like”; whereas the rising tones are altogether “lighter” tones, the high-rising tone being the most casual. 1986:59 The whole matter of appropriateness raises two important questions which we need to address: firstly, why does Shvinder habitually use a wide key except when she is closing her story? Is it just because it is her usual way of talking and really nothing to do with the conscious use of evaluation at all? If so, can we honestly say that she is using expressive phonology? The second question follows on from the first: how far does the habitual use of such features as a wide key and rising tones rob those features of their impact? Now Cruttenden 1986 reports certain general characteristics which have been observed about Indian English: … speakers use a rhythm which is considerably different from other types of English, because it makes very much less use of reduced syllables; … speakers have many words which differ from other dialects in their stress patterns; … it is said that nucleus placement is not as moveable as it is in other dialects, that it is generally fixed on the last stress, and that hence, like Edinburgh English … , there is no de-accenting for old information; and that contrast is indicated by pitch height rather than by using a different nucleus placement or a different nuclear tone. Furthermore it is reported … that the most common nuclear tone is a rise-fall and hence Indian English is reported as sounding like Welsh English. pp. 143–144 These characteristics are certainly true of Shvinder’s speech and may, in part, help to explain the occasional discrepancy between perceived prominence and the instrumental acoustic records: there is a tendency to hear what we expect to hear, and we often fail to pick up the points of difference. But, more importantly, it also helps to explain the non- evaluative use of pitch height and rise-fall nuclear tone in 10 and 12 above. So the answer to our first question may be that Shvinder does use these features out of habit and that she - 236 - is not necessarily conscious that her speech has these characteristics; but that does not alter the hearer’s perceptions, and when they are used evaluatively they produce the desired impact. Both hearer and researcher responded to the general liveliness of her performance, and that liveliness had an irresistible appeal which was achieved by using a wide key or pitch range, intonational contrasts, rhythm and changes in pace such as pause and lengthened vowels, differences in intensity or loudness, and changes in voice quality. As reported by Labov, “expressive phonology” was “superimposed upon other words of the clause”, and often these other words were evaluative devices in their own right see the codes beside the evaluated clauses in the sample above. We have reported on Shvinder’s performance at some length: Sakander produced much less expressive phonology and so his performance will be described more briefly. Sakander Sakander uses a much narrower pitch range than Shvinder does, frequencies measured being between 201 and 359Hz a range of only 158Hz. So in his stories we find shallow falls, rise-falls, fall-rise-falls, and fall-level-rise-falls. His utterances are also less fluid, punctuated by many brief pauses between and within words, and much less use is made of expressive phonology. As a result his delivery comes across as rather wooden and lacking in vitality. However, this somewhat ponderous style is appropriate for the opening events of his story A see figures 6.13, 6.14, and 6.15: 3 BUT SOME thing DREAD ful HAPpened. 4 His RICE WAS RAN OUT 5 AND SO HE COULDn’t do ANy thing a BO-OU tit. In the transcription both 3 and 5 are marked as evaluated by expressive phonology because the general air of solemnity which is generated, coupled with the lexical intensifier “dreadful” in 3, and the lengthening of the vowel in “about” in 5, is just right. Looking first at figure 6.13, we see that the intonation trace is a series of roughly level falling glides, plus the odd rise, within a very narrow frequency range of 230-250Hz, with a lower drop on the HAP- of “happened” to 210Hz. - 237 - Figure 6.13 There is also relative uniformity when it comes to loudness, or intensity, with nothing equivalent to stressed and unstressed syllables: in those perceived as unstressed other factors seem to be operating, such as the fact that open vowels are acoustically of greater intensity than close vowels, or that the unfamiliar rhythm is affecting one’s subjective judgments. - 238 - Figure 6.14 Figures 6.14 and 6.15 give two versions of A5: figure 6.14, giving just the end of the utterance, shows that the lengthened vowel of “about” is roughly 0.2secs. of vowel and 0.2secs. of pause, and figure 6.15 shows that there is a whole 2.0sec. pause between “couldn’t” and “do”; this is not a discontinuity, but a pause for thought which breaks the utterance into two. If we look at the baseline of the series of falls, we find that in the first half they are getting higher 220-255Hz and in the second half they are getting increasingly lower 235-190Hz. - 239 - Figure 6.15 There is also some variation in the intensity: the AN- of “anything” carries the greatest amplitude; the “do” is not perceived as a stressed syllable but it is about equal in intensity to the two syllables of “couldn’t”, although only the COULD- is perceived as prominent. The perceived prominence of the second syllable of “about” is one of length and a falling contour; in intensity they are about equal and similar to that of the -thing of “anything”. There are minor discrepancies in the shape of the contours in 6.14 and 6.15; these can be explained by the fact that there is a difference in the frequency levels chosen for the two graphs. - 240 - Figure 6.16 We do, however, have examples from Story A where there are longer glides and more elaborate contours than the ones just described; one such example is the following see also figure 6.16: 9 BUT he THOUGHT 10 it WAS HIS RICE 11 BUT it WAS NOT. - 241 - Figure 6.17 The rhythm is similar to the example above; perceived prominence has to do with a mixture of intensity and pitch movement. Unfortunately, we only have a print-out for part of 10, and 11: here we have a contrast between “rice” and “not”, both made prominent by a rise-fall cf. Shvinder’s fall-rise contours. There is also an initial fall on the r of “rice” to give a fall-rise-fall contour, and a fall-rise-fall on “was” which is part of the same contour as “not”; however, the rise-fall is marked by greater intensity in each case. The antithetical “but” is made prominent by intensity only. - 242 - Figure 6.18 This use of pitch and intensity, or loudness, is evaluative and must be compared, not with the performances of other subjects, but with passages where he has made no attempt to use phonology to focus on important lexical items or particular evaluative devices. Sakander does not use reported conversation as freely as Shvinder does, but we do have one example where he uses expressive phonology in a conversational passage see figure 6.17: 21 Can YOU deLIVer the RICE to Mr. WONG? - 243 - The “you” is focused because in the previous utterance he confused his pronouns “I” for “you” and so the “you” is a clarification; it is marked phonologically by a high rise coupled with heavy stress. “Rice” is marked by a short burst of intensity and a very short, low rise; and “Wong” by intensity, and a short rise followed by a longer low fall. There is a 2.5secs. pause between “to” and “Mr. “ while he thinks what to say next. The final example contains a particularly expressive verb and, though there is nothing dramatic about the phonology, it does seem to fit the sentiments being conveyed by the utterance see figure 6.18: 23 SO FAther CHRIST mas CHUCK some RICE The focus is on “chuck” and this is marked in the phonology by greater intensity than that of the surrounding syllables and a short rise which is higher in pitch than the rest of the utterance. The causal “so” is marked phonologically by a long falling glide 265-210Hz which is considerably longer than the others in the utterance; it is also the most heavily stressed syllable of the utterance. The prop “rice” is marked by a short rise-fall; we have seen above that there is a tendency for important lexical items to be marked by rise-fall contours. The conclusion of the story is rather bitty; Kenneth intervenes with his ideas and Sakander merely repeats them without too much conviction.

6.3.8 The Acquisition of Intonation