Defining and Identifying Discourse Markers in Spontaneous Speech
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Tommaso Raso
Abstract
The paper has a twofold goal: (i) to identify the category of Discourse Markers (DM) and their different specific functions; (ii) to validate the proposal with a perceptual experiment. First, we propose how to identify DMs and their different functions in spontaneous speech. Both the identification of the category of DM and that of specific DM functions are based on prosodic criteria. In order to identify a DM, speech segmentation is crucial, since DMs necessarily appear isolated in a prosodic unit. Besides prosodic isolation, DMs do not feature pragmatic and prosodic autonomy, but depend on the illocutionary unit of the utterance. Then we show that the same lexical item can fulfill more functions, while the formal cues that convey the function are prosodic ones. The last part of the chapter is devoted to presenting the methodology and the results of a perceptual experiment that tests the theoretical hypothesis by asking the listeners to recognize three different functions by means of prosodic cues only.
Abstract
The paper has a twofold goal: (i) to identify the category of Discourse Markers (DM) and their different specific functions; (ii) to validate the proposal with a perceptual experiment. First, we propose how to identify DMs and their different functions in spontaneous speech. Both the identification of the category of DM and that of specific DM functions are based on prosodic criteria. In order to identify a DM, speech segmentation is crucial, since DMs necessarily appear isolated in a prosodic unit. Besides prosodic isolation, DMs do not feature pragmatic and prosodic autonomy, but depend on the illocutionary unit of the utterance. Then we show that the same lexical item can fulfill more functions, while the formal cues that convey the function are prosodic ones. The last part of the chapter is devoted to presenting the methodology and the results of a perceptual experiment that tests the theoretical hypothesis by asking the listeners to recognize three different functions by means of prosodic cues only.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Contents IX
- Prosody and L2 Learning Interface: The Case of Spanish L2 and Brazilian Portuguese L1 Intonation 1
- The Role of Prosody in the Processing of Ambiguities in Brazilian Portuguese 31
- Defining and Identifying Discourse Markers in Spontaneous Speech 65
- A Contribution to a Better Understanding of Silent Pause 103
- Perceptual and Physiological Correlates of Voice Quality Settings 127
- Multimodal Analysis of Speech Attractiveness Expression 151
- Posture and Gestures Can Affect the Prosodic Speaker Impact in a Remote Presentation 181
- An Acoustic Analysis of Creaky Voice Patterns in Singing 223
- Evaluating OpenAI’s Whisper ASR for Punctuation Prediction and Topic Modeling of life histories of the Museum of the Person 247
- Index
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Contents IX
- Prosody and L2 Learning Interface: The Case of Spanish L2 and Brazilian Portuguese L1 Intonation 1
- The Role of Prosody in the Processing of Ambiguities in Brazilian Portuguese 31
- Defining and Identifying Discourse Markers in Spontaneous Speech 65
- A Contribution to a Better Understanding of Silent Pause 103
- Perceptual and Physiological Correlates of Voice Quality Settings 127
- Multimodal Analysis of Speech Attractiveness Expression 151
- Posture and Gestures Can Affect the Prosodic Speaker Impact in a Remote Presentation 181
- An Acoustic Analysis of Creaky Voice Patterns in Singing 223
- Evaluating OpenAI’s Whisper ASR for Punctuation Prediction and Topic Modeling of life histories of the Museum of the Person 247
- Index
