4. Marco Teórico Referencial
4.1.2. Planes Estratégicos de Incorporación de TIC
1 A.P. Chekhov Institute of Taganrog (branch of) Rostov State University of Economics (RINH), associate professor, PhD in Philology, 347900, Taganrog, Russia
2 A.P. Chekhov Institute of Taganrog (branch of) Rostov State University of Economics (RINH), associate professor, PhD in Philology, 347900, Taganrog, Russia
3 A.P. Chekhov Institute of Taganrog (branch of) Rostov State University of Economics (RINH), associate professor, PhD in Philology, 347900, Taganrog, Russia
Abstract
The phenomenon of TV political debate has much been discussed recently due to their high popularity and great persuasive value as an instrument in political struggle for power.
Political debates aim at informing and persuasion. Recent American presidential debates showed that persuasive function comes undoubtedly forward therefore any linguistic feature used in the context is aiming at convincing and persuading.
Electro-acoustic analysis of speech done in Praat v6.0.21 allows to describe some tonal and range peculiarities of nuclear low falling and rising tones. Traditionally they are used as a grammatical compliment rather than expressing subjective modality but we suppose that the mentioned above tones can be used to help the speaker fulfill persuasive function. The paper presents a part of a bigger investigation into prosodic peculiarities of political debate.
As a rule the debates start in the non-emotional key so the choice of the prosodic nuclear tones lies within the limits of emotionally non-marked means, which, in its turn, is the subject matter of our investigation.
Tonal prosodic component (as a nucleus) of non-emotional part of debates is presented mostly through the variety of low falling and rising and mid level nuclear tones pronounced within the limits of semi-narrow or medium register in the lower part of the tonal range.
The paper proves that prosodic attitudes, expressed by basic simple tones acquire new meanings and implications in political speech and these new semantic shades fulfil pragmatic function of persuasion. The prosodic parameter of the nuclear tones which is modified for the purpose is mostly tonal range, although the place of the utterance in the phonetic paragraph also plays an important role. Sometimes a contour can be replaced for its counterpart to add some personal evaluative attitude to the matter while in general the speech seems to sound impartial and unemotional.
Keywords:phonostylistic identity of political debate, tonal component, tonal levels, emotionally neutral prosody, allotones, tonal movement range
Introduction
The phenomenon of TV political debate has much been discussed recently due to their high popularity and great persuasive value as an instrument in political struggle for power. Any political text is thought through and made up so that any minute detail acquires great importance in the perspective. Prosodic characteristics are of no exception. It is common knowledge that prosody is capable of expressing various grammatical and semantic meanings and thus is widely used by speakers as a means of manipulation with the audience’s decision making.
Political debates presuppose that two aims are realized at the same time: that of informing and that of persuasion. This idea has been expressed by E.I. Sheigal (Sheigal, 2000), E. B. Suhotskaya and N.M. Perelgut (Perelgut, Suhotskaya, 2013) and many others (Baranov,1991), (Dijk, 1998), (Feldman ed., 1998). However, recent American presidential debates showed that persuasive function comes undoubtedly forward therefore any linguistic feature used in the context is aiming at convincing and persuading. The current paper presents a study into some prosodic means of expressing persuasive function in political debate. On the basis of electro-acoustic analysis of speech it describes some tonal and range peculiarities of nuclear low falling and rising tones. Although they are traditionally thought to be used as a grammatical compliment rather than expressing subjective modality (but not in the least devoid of the latter), the authors managed to prove the point that the mentioned above tones can be used to help the speaker fulfill persuasive function. The paper presents a part of a bigger investigation into prosodic peculiarities of political debate.
Method
The current investigation involved analyzing speech samples of politicians performing in political debate (https://www.nytimes.com/2015), (https://www.politico.com/story/2016), (http://fortune.com/2016), (https://www.wash ingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016). According to widespread practice and for the sake of convenience we divided the speech body of the debate into two bulks: emotionally neutral and emotionally coloured. In this part of our study we
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limit our sounding data to emotionally neutral bulk. The electro-acoustic analysis was done in Praat v6.0.21. Tonal height was described in the following terms: extra low, low, low mid, high mid, high and extra high. Tonal range was described in the following terms: narrow, semi-narrow, medium, semi-wide, wide. All video speeches were converted into audio files for the sake of analysis.
Discussion
Political discourse is thought to be one of a kind for the following strong reasons. First, it occupies some intermediate position among speech, communication and linguistic behavior on the one hand and fixed text on the other (Sheigal, 2000). Second, it has several genres beginning with informal like political scandals, TV political debates, press conferences ending in most formal like laws and decrees. The main objective of all kinds of political communication is the struggle to gain the majority of voices in the elections to maintain power, which turns political discourse into a kind of speech performance accomplished within the limits of the politicians’ institutional activity.
Political debates present the type of dialogical speech forms with the leading persuasive and informative function. From the point of view of the structure, debates are similar to an interview in the way that a question-answer form prevails. In addition, there are variants where participants exchange their opinions without actually being asked questions. Recent practices of previous years showed that political debates can turn into a very heated discussion where emotions are overwhelming, besides, the choice of emotional tones depends but little on the syntactical structure of the utterance but on its semantic aspect.
We have noticed that as a rule the debates start in the non-emotional key so the choice of the prosodic nuclear tones lies within the limits of emotionally non-marked means, which, in its turn, is the subject matter of our investigation.
Tonal prosodic component (as a nucleus) of non-emotional part of debates is presented mostly through the variety of low falling and rising and mid level nuclear tones pronounced within the limits of semi-narrow or medium register in the lower part of the tonal range.
Low falling and rising tones and all their allotones respectively are traditionally regarded as emotionally not coloured (with some exceptions (O'Connor, 1973) and mostly serving to fulfil grammatical meaning of finality or non- finality (Kingdon, 1958).
Within the population of falling allotones it is possible to distinguish three main variants. They are: (1) the one with the most narrow range possible to distinguish and beginning and ending on the low tonal level; (2) the one with the narrow range and beginning on the low and ending on the extra low tonal levels; (3) the one with the semi-narrow range and beginning on the low mid and ending on the extra low tonal levels.
Within the population of rising allotones it is also possible to distinguish three main variants. They are: (4) the one with the narrow tone and beginning on the extra low and ending on the low tonal levels; (5) the one with the semi- narrow range and beginning on the low and ending on the low mid tonal levels; (6) the one with the medium range and beginning on the extra low and ending on the low mid /high mid tonal levels.
All the mentioned above can be pictured on the following diagram.
Fig. 1 – Tonal diagram
We consider it relevant to mention that all the tonal moves are studied within a phonetic paragraph taking the fact proved by Yu. Dubovsky (Dubovsky, 1983) that the prosodic realisations make up a system, abide by common laws and influence one another.
Results
Having performed electro-acoustic analysis of the politicians’ speeches we managed to acquire the following consistent patterns.
A phonetic paragraph as a rule starts with phrase ending in a falling allotone of the semi-narrow range. Other utterances (3 to 5 in number) are realised with the help of the narrow range in case a falling tone is opted for. The last phrase of the final phonetic paragraph is usually realised with the tone which looks very much like the one in the first; what is more, in case of a compound sentence both parts tend to be pronounced this way. In other words, there exists an obvious tendency to widen the range of the first and final falling terminal tones.
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This pattern may be explained by the unconscious wish of the speaker to strengthen the first and the final ideas which usually stay in the audience’s minds better. Moreover, the first sentence usually presents the key idea of the utterance which introduces a new semantic turn in the speech. The speakers therefore use the falling tone with a wider range (reaching semi-narrow or medium ranges) and ending on the extra low tonal level which sounds more weighty and persuasive. This kind of a falling allotone preserves the idea of final, categorical attitude but acquires an additional implication of being strong and compelling.
The variety of the rising tones was wider in the part where the participants answer questions rather than when they state their ideas. This can be explained by the fact that the basic attitude conveyed by the rising tones is non-final, non- categorical and implying continuation which in its turn gives the speakers the opportunity to think over their answers. Thus most of the answers start with an introductory phrase pronounced with the allotone beginning on the extra low tonal level which is physically more convenient after the silence. The tonal range varies from narrow to medium. We have traced a curious tendency: the wider range the speaker uses for the parenthesis the longer is the pause after it. This looks like a common strategy used by the speakers to win time to think of a good answer and not to look hesitant or unsure. The idea can also be supported by the fact that almost all other intonation groups ending in a rising allotone within a phonetic paragraph are separated with a junction and tonal contrast.
Rising allotones found within a phonetic paragraph commonly start on the low pitch level with a narrow tonal range and fulfil a grammatical function of continuation.
We cannot but mention a curious incidental use of rising allotones in statements which by their grammatical and pragmatic function are supposed to be final and categorical. By their tonal parameters these allotones are no different from those realising purely grammatical function. Alongside with John Wells (Wells, 2006) we assume that this manner of using rising tones is characteristic of semantic implications of uncertainty or scepticism. It is also possible that a function of a falling-rising tone is acquired by a simple rising one, that of contradiction, correction or contrast.
Conclusion
To sum up, prosodic attitudes, expressed by basic simple tones acquire new meanings and implications in political speech and these new semantic shades fulfil pragmatic function of persuasion. The prosodic parameter of the nuclear tones which is modified for the purpose is mostly tonal range, although the place of the utterance in the phonetic paragraph also plays an important role. Sometimes a contour can be replaced for its counterpart to add some personal evaluative attitude to the matter while in general the speech seems to sound impartial and unemotional.
We are far from the notion that this study is complete and in the next works we intend to study prosodic possibilities of contrastive emphasis in political speeches and prosodic peculiarities of emotionally coloured part of political debate.
References
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