2 The effect of emotions on melodic patterns. A focus on Spanish learning
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Xose A. Padilla
Abstract
Our ability to understand other people’s emotions is key to a successful social interaction. Studies from various disciplines (Ploog 1986; Scherer 1986; Plutchik 1994; Cowie and Cornelius 2003; Laukka 2004; Cañamero 2005; Pell et al. 2009; Frühholz et al. 2014) suggest that prosody is a basic piece to get this success. Identifying all the prosodic features related to emotional states is important for any speaker as part of his or her communicative activity, but it becomes even more significant when the problem is transferred to the field of foreign language learning (Pell 2009). Students of a foreign language have to face the whole range of emotions expressed by native speakers and in order to achieve this goal they need to be provided with clear and effective melodic patterns. Accordingly, the aim of this work is to explore the effect of emotions on Spanish prosody patterns. Firstly, we will describe which melodic features (1st peak, body-declination, nucleus, final inflexion (IF); F0 register and F0 range) characterise Spanish neutral intonation (Cantero 2002; Font-Rotchés and Cantero 2008; etc.). Secondly, we will analyse how core emotions (joy, sadness, surprise, fear, anger and disgust) (Ekman 1970, 1999) modify these neutral patterns. Additionally, we will explore whether the emotional utterances are accompanied by nonverbal, lexical, and syntactic elements contributing to their emotional characterization. Finally, we will present a set of diagrams and their descriptions, which we think could be used in the classroom and to develop teaching materials. In this work we will use a corpus of emotional utterances obtained from spontaneous colloquial conversations, most of which are part of the Val.Es.Co. 2.0 corpus (https://www.uv.es/corpusvalesco/corpus.html). A first analysis of the colloquial emotional utterances suggests that all six basic emotions modify considerably the variables under study.
Abstract
Our ability to understand other people’s emotions is key to a successful social interaction. Studies from various disciplines (Ploog 1986; Scherer 1986; Plutchik 1994; Cowie and Cornelius 2003; Laukka 2004; Cañamero 2005; Pell et al. 2009; Frühholz et al. 2014) suggest that prosody is a basic piece to get this success. Identifying all the prosodic features related to emotional states is important for any speaker as part of his or her communicative activity, but it becomes even more significant when the problem is transferred to the field of foreign language learning (Pell 2009). Students of a foreign language have to face the whole range of emotions expressed by native speakers and in order to achieve this goal they need to be provided with clear and effective melodic patterns. Accordingly, the aim of this work is to explore the effect of emotions on Spanish prosody patterns. Firstly, we will describe which melodic features (1st peak, body-declination, nucleus, final inflexion (IF); F0 register and F0 range) characterise Spanish neutral intonation (Cantero 2002; Font-Rotchés and Cantero 2008; etc.). Secondly, we will analyse how core emotions (joy, sadness, surprise, fear, anger and disgust) (Ekman 1970, 1999) modify these neutral patterns. Additionally, we will explore whether the emotional utterances are accompanied by nonverbal, lexical, and syntactic elements contributing to their emotional characterization. Finally, we will present a set of diagrams and their descriptions, which we think could be used in the classroom and to develop teaching materials. In this work we will use a corpus of emotional utterances obtained from spontaneous colloquial conversations, most of which are part of the Val.Es.Co. 2.0 corpus (https://www.uv.es/corpusvalesco/corpus.html). A first analysis of the colloquial emotional utterances suggests that all six basic emotions modify considerably the variables under study.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- List of figures IX
- List of tables XV
- Introduction: Affective language and prosody as a key 1
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Section A: Approaches to learning and teaching prosody
- 1 On the functional map of intonation in Spanish Foreign Language (SFL) teaching: is there a place for emotion? 11
- 2 The effect of emotions on melodic patterns. A focus on Spanish learning 41
- 3 Affect and emotional prosody in the foreign language classroom 61
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Section B: Affectivity and prosody
- 4 Melodic cues of acted emotional speech in LX Spanish spoken by Chinese L1 speakers 79
- 5 Emotion and melodic features of emphasis in Spanish produced by Chinese speakers 105
- 6 Melodic features of emphatic intonation in Spanish spoken by Swedish speakers 131
- 7 The prosody of word stress realization as a possible sign of insecurity in the spontaneous speech of Hungarian learners of Spanish 157
- 8 Catalan early readers prosodic characterization of a wh-question: traits of affectation 175
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Section C: Emotional status of L2 learners
- 9 Foreign language speaking anxiety and automatic speech recognition-based practice 213
- 10 Facilitating oral skills and willingness to communicate in the L2 classroom: towards a music-and-emotion-mediated learning 229
- 11 Feeling lonely in a new country: The emotional discourse of migrant learners of Spanish 251
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Section D: Cross-cultural affective conditioning factors in L2 learning
- 12 Music videos for fostering awareness of democratic culture in foreign language learning 275
- 13 Intercultural climate in university segregated classrooms: Language, emotions, and gender dynamics in Qatar’s higher education settings 295
- 14 Chinese EFL learners’ cognition of colour and colour-related emotional expressions in the case of red and blue 317
- Conclusions 341
- Index 347
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- List of figures IX
- List of tables XV
- Introduction: Affective language and prosody as a key 1
-
Section A: Approaches to learning and teaching prosody
- 1 On the functional map of intonation in Spanish Foreign Language (SFL) teaching: is there a place for emotion? 11
- 2 The effect of emotions on melodic patterns. A focus on Spanish learning 41
- 3 Affect and emotional prosody in the foreign language classroom 61
-
Section B: Affectivity and prosody
- 4 Melodic cues of acted emotional speech in LX Spanish spoken by Chinese L1 speakers 79
- 5 Emotion and melodic features of emphasis in Spanish produced by Chinese speakers 105
- 6 Melodic features of emphatic intonation in Spanish spoken by Swedish speakers 131
- 7 The prosody of word stress realization as a possible sign of insecurity in the spontaneous speech of Hungarian learners of Spanish 157
- 8 Catalan early readers prosodic characterization of a wh-question: traits of affectation 175
-
Section C: Emotional status of L2 learners
- 9 Foreign language speaking anxiety and automatic speech recognition-based practice 213
- 10 Facilitating oral skills and willingness to communicate in the L2 classroom: towards a music-and-emotion-mediated learning 229
- 11 Feeling lonely in a new country: The emotional discourse of migrant learners of Spanish 251
-
Section D: Cross-cultural affective conditioning factors in L2 learning
- 12 Music videos for fostering awareness of democratic culture in foreign language learning 275
- 13 Intercultural climate in university segregated classrooms: Language, emotions, and gender dynamics in Qatar’s higher education settings 295
- 14 Chinese EFL learners’ cognition of colour and colour-related emotional expressions in the case of red and blue 317
- Conclusions 341
- Index 347