Vocative intonation preferences are sensitive to politeness factors

Although intonation has been traditionally associated with the expression of attitudes and intentions on the part of the speaker, little is known about whether sociopragmatic factors, such as power or social distance, or situational ones, like physical distance or insistence, can constrain the use a...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Borràs Comes, Joan Manel, 1984-, Sichel-Bazin, Rafèu, Prieto Vives, Pilar, 1965-
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión aceptada para publicación
Fecha de publicación:2015
País:España
Institución:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
Repositorio:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
OAI Identifier:oai:recercat.cat:10230/57294
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10230/57294
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0023830914565441
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:vocatives
vocative intonation
politeness
intonation
chant
Catalan
Descripción
Sumario:Although intonation has been traditionally associated with the expression of attitudes and intentions on the part of the speaker, little is known about whether sociopragmatic factors, such as power or social distance, or situational ones, like physical distance or insistence, can constrain the use and felicity of pitch contours. This article investigates the felicity conditions underlying the choice of three vocative pitch contours in Central Catalan by means of two experiments, namely a production experiment based on the Discourse Completion Task (320 vocative contours produced by 20 speakers), and an acceptability judgment task in which 72 listeners were asked to rate the appropriateness match between a set of vocative contours and a previous discourse context (3,456 responses). The results from the two experiments show that both situational and social politeness factors govern the choice of vocative intonation. Finally, the results are discussed in line with the traditional classification of politeness strategies defined by Brown and Levinson, in the sense that the three intonation contours can be linked to negative, positive, and bald on-record politeness strategies.