Prosody in Conversation

These essays study the role of prosody in everyday English, German, and Italian conversation.

The essays in this volume are all analyses of prosody - primarily intonation and rhythm - and the role it plays in everyday conversation, and they study material which is taken not from laboratory data but from genuine English, German, and Italian conversations.The essays in this volume are all original contributions dealing in one way or another with the analysis of prosody - primarily intonation and rhythm - and the role it plays in everyday conversation. They take as their methodological starting point the contention that the study of prosody must begin with genuine interactional rather than pre fabricated laboratory data. Through close empirical analysis of recorded material from genuine English, German, and Italian conversations, the prosody emerges here as a strategy deployed by interactants in the management of turn-taking and floor-holding; in the negotiation of conversational activities such as repair, assessments, announcements, reproaches, and news receipts; and in the keying of the tone or modality of interactional sequences.