Prosody and discourse particles: on the functions of attenuation, enhancement as (im)polite values in conversational markers

Abstract

Prosody and discourse particles: On the functions of attenuation, enhancement as (im)polite values in conversational markers

This research is part of the project, Phonopoliteness: the audio component in the verbal expression of politeness and impoliteness in colloquial Spanish (Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, FFI2009-07034), interested in the ability of the audio component (both segmental and suprasegmental level) to encourage courteous or discourteous pragmatic effects in colloquial conversation.

Within this general line of research, we analyse here the variety of prosodic realizations of so-called “focusers of otherness”, and the implications these may have on assumption (im)polite pragmatic effects, mainly articulated through attenuation or enhancement of expression. In particular, within this group of markers we study the particles hombre, bueno, ¿sabes? and ¿eh?, since we understand that according to their prosodic realization the value of these markers in context may vary; such markers also are particularly common in conversation and often nuanced prosodically. For our analysis we have handled the general corpus of colloquial conversations Val.Es.Co. Group (Briz, A. & Val.Es.Co. Group, 2002: Corpus de conversaciones coloquiales. Anejo 1 de Oralia. Madrid. Arco Libros), revised and filtered for the Phonopoliteness project.

Methodologically we have submitted the units referred to a thorough acoustic analysis, to see if, indeed, diverse prosodic realizations can determine polite or impolite pragmatic effects in their specific context. In this case study, we have adhered to contexts where these effects were manifest.

Ultimately, our analysis attempts to show the communicative productivity of the Prosody-Markers-(Im)politeness interface, and thus contribute to a novel line of research in the field of phonopragmatic studies.