Prosody in Discourse and Speaker State

Abstract

This chapter examines prosodic variation in discourse and in speaker state. The discussion of discourse prosody includes an examination of both prosodic entrainment and turn-taking behaviours. Prosodic entrainment results from the tendency of speakers to become more like each other as they speak in a variety of behaviours including pitch, speaking rate, and intensity, as well as higher-level prosodic elements such as pitch accent and phrasal tones, and including body gesture and facial expression, which are beyond the scope of this chapter. Prosodic research in discourse turn-taking focuses on prosodic elements of different turn-taking behaviours such as smooth turn exchanges, interruptions, and backchannels, and the turns that precede and follow these. Prosodic aspects of speaker state include prosodic characteristics of speakers’ emotional state as well as related states such as deception. These characteristics may be used to identify different speaker states as well as to produce them in synthetic speech.