Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-cjp7w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-04T02:25:06.311Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The prosody of other-repetition in Italian: A system of tunes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 July 2020

Giovanni Rossi Open the ORCID record for Giovanni Rossi [Opens in a new window]
Giovanni Rossi*
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles, USA University of Helsinki, Finland
*
Address for correspondence: Giovanni Rossi, University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Sociology, 375 Portola Plaza, 264 Haines Hall, Los Angeles, CA90095-1551, USA, rossi@soc.ucla.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

As part of the project reported on in this special issue, the present study provides an overview of the types of action accomplished by other-repetition in Italian, with particular reference to the variety of the language spoken in the northeastern province of Trento. The analysis surveys actions within the domain of initiating repair, actions that extend beyond initiating repair, and actions that are alternative to initiating repair. Pitch contour emerges as a central design feature of other-repetition in Italian, with six nuclear contours associated with distinct types of action, sequential trajectories, and response patterns. The study also documents the interplay of pitch contour with other prosodic features (pitch span and register) and visible behavior (head nods, eyebrow movements). (Repetition, conversation, prosody, intonation, action, Italian)*

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 49 , Special Issue 4: Other-Repetition in Conversation across Languages , September 2020 , pp. 619 - 652
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Rasmus Persson, Betty Couper-Kuhlen, Jack Sidnell, and Francisco Torreira for their comments and input at various stages of this study. I also benefited from conversations with Gene Lerner, Richard Ogden, Geoff Raymond, and Verónica Gonzáles Temer, and from the feedback I received from members of the LISO unit at the University of California, Santa Barbara on a presentation of this work. Any remaining errors and infelicities are my own. Finally, I wish to thank Susan Ehrlich for her patience and support during the writing of this article and the completion of the special issue. This research was supported by the Finnish Center of Excellence in Research on Intersubjectivity in Interaction directed by Marja-Leena Sorjonen (Academy of Finland grant # 284595).

References

REFERENCES

Benjamin, Trevor M., & Walker, Traci S. (2013). Managing problems of acceptability through high rise-fall repetitions. Discourse Processes 50(2):107–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bertinetto, Pier Marco, & Loporcaro, Michele (2005). The sound pattern of Standard Italian, as compared with the varieties spoken in Florence, Milan and Rome. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 35(2):131–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boersma, Paul, & Weenink, David (2020). Praat: Doing phonetics by computer. University of Amsterdam. Online: http://www.praat.org/.Google Scholar
Bolden, Galina B. (2009). Beyond answering: Repeat-prefaced responses in conversation. Communication Monographs 76(2):121–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chovil, Nicole (1991). Discourse-oriented facial displays in conversation. Research on Language & Social Interaction 25(1–4):163–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth, & Barth-Weingarten, Dagmar (2011). A system for transcribing talk-in-interaction: GAT 2. English translation and adaptation of Margaret Selting et al.: Gesprächsanalytisches Transkriptionssystem 2. Gesprächsforschung: Online-Zeitschrift zur verbalen Interaktion 12:1–51.Google Scholar
Curl, Traci S. (2005). Practices in other-initiated repair resolution: The phonetic differentiation of ‘repetitions’. Discourse Processes 39(1):1–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darwin, Charles (1872). The expression of the emotions in man and animals. London: J. Murray.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dingemanse, Mark; JoeBlythe, TykoDirksmeyer, (2014). Formats for other-initiation of repair across languages: An exercise in pragmatic typology. Studies in Language 31(1):5–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dingemanse, Mark; Blythe, Joe, & Enfield, N. J. (2015). Other-initiated repair across languages: Towards a typology of conversational structures. Open Linguistics 1:96–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drew, Paul (1997). ‘Open’ class repair initiators in response to sequential sources of troubles in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 28(1):69–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ekman, Paul; Wallace V.Friesen, Joseph C.Hager, (2002). Facial action coding system: The manual. Salt Lake City, UT: Network Information Research Corporation.Google Scholar
Enfield, N. J., & Sidnell, Jack (2017). On the concept of action in the study of interaction. Discourse Studies 19(5):515–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frota, Sónia, & Prieto, Pilar (eds.) (2015). Intonation in romance. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardner, Rod (2001). When listeners talk: Response tokens and listener stance. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerhardt, Julie, & Beyerle, Sandra (1997). What if Socrates had been a woman? Contemporary Psychoanalysis 33(3):367–410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gili Fivela, Barbara; CinziaAvesani, MarcoBarone, GiulianoBocci, ClaudiaCrocco, MariapaolaD'Imperio, RosaGiordano, GiovannaMarotta, MichelinaSavino, PatriziaSorianello, (2015). Intonational phonology of the regional varieties of Italian. In Frota, Sónia & Prieto, Pilar (eds.), Intonation in romance, 140–97. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grice, Martine; D'Imperio, Mariapaola; Savino, Michelina; & Avesani, Cinzia (2005). Strategies for intonation labelling across varieties of Italian. In Sun-Ah Jun (ed.), Prosodic typology: The phonology of intonation and phrasing, 362–89. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grice, Martine,; D'Imperio, Mariapaola; Savino, Michelina & Savino, Michelina (2003). Map tasks in Italian: Asking questions about given, accessible and new information. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 2:153–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayashi, Makoto; Raymond, Geoffrey; & Sidnell, Jack (2013). Conversational repair and human understanding: An introduction. In Hayashi, Makoto, Raymond, Geoffrey, & Sidnell, Jack (eds.), Conversational repair and human understanding, 1–40. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Heath, Christian (1992). Gesture's discreet tasks: Multiple relevancies in visual conduct and in the contextualization of language. In Auer, Peter & di Luzio, Aldo (eds.), The contextualization of language, 101–27. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heritage, John (1984). A change-of-state token and aspects of its sequential placement. In Atkinson, J. Maxwell & Heritage, John (eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis, 299–345. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail (1972). Side sequences. In Sudnow, David N. (ed.), Studies in social interaction, 294–338. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Kaukomaa, Timo; AnssiPeräkylä, JohannaRuusuvuori, (2014). Foreshadowing a problem: Turn-opening frowns in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 71:132–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelly, John, & Local, John (1989). Doing phonology: Observing, recording, interpreting. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Krämer, Martin (2009). The phonology of Italian. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, M. Paul; Simons, Gary F.; & Fennig, Charles D. (eds.) (2014). Ethnologue: Languages of the world. 17th edn.Dallas, TX: SIL International. Online: http://www.ethnologue.com.Google Scholar
Mondada, Lorenza (2019). Conventions for multimodal transcription (v. 5.0.1). Online: https://www.lorenzamondada.net/multimodal-transcription.Google Scholar
Nolan, Francis (2006). Intonation. In Aarts, Bas & McMahon, April (eds.), The handbook of English linguistics, 433–55. Malden, MA: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogden, Richard (2006). Phonetics and social action in agreements and disagreements. Journal of Pragmatics 38(10):1752–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ogden, Richard (2010). Prosodic constructions in making complaints. In Barth-Weingarten, Dagmar, Reber, Elisabeth, & Selting, Margret (eds.), Prosody in interaction, 81–104. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Persson, Rasmus (2015). Registering and repair-initiating repeats in French talk-in-interaction. Discourse Studies 17(5):583–608.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Persson, Rasmus (2017). Fill-in-the-blank questions in interaction: Incomplete utterances as a resource for doing inquiries. Research on Language & Social Interaction 50(3):227–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pillet-Shore, Danielle (2012). Greeting: Displaying stance through prosodic recipient design. Research on Language & Social Interaction 45(4):375–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, Jeffrey D. (2013). Epistemics, action formation, and other-initiation of repair: The case of partial questioning repeats. In Hayashi, Makoto, Raymond, Geoffrey, & Sidnell, Jack (eds.), Conversational repair and human understanding, 261–92. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rossano, Federico (2010). Questioning and responding in Italian. Journal of Pragmatics 42(10):2756–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rossi, Giovanni (2015). Other-initiated repair in Italian. Open Linguistics 1(1):256–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, James A. (1997). Reading emotions from and into faces: Resurrecting a dimensional-contextual perspective. In Russell, James A. & Dols, JoséMiguel Fernández (eds.), The psychology of facial expression, 295–320. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A. (1997). Practices and actions: Boundary cases of other-initiated repair. Discourse Processes 23(3):499–546.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A. (2007). Sequence organization in interaction: A primer in conversation analysis, vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A.; Jefferson, Gail; & Sacks, Harvey (1977). The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language 53(2):361–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Selting, Margret (1996). Prosody as an activity-type distinctive cue in conversation: The case of so-called ‘astonished’ questions in repair initiation. In Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth & Selting, Margret (eds.), Prosody in conversation: Interactional studies, 231–70. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Craig A., & Scott, Heather S. (1997). A componential approach to the meaning of facial expressions. In Russell, James A. & Dols, JoséMiguel Fernández (eds.), The psychology of facial expression, 229–54. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sorjonen, Marja-Leena (1996). On repeats and responses in Finnish conversations. In Ochs, Elinor, Schegloff, Emanuel A., & Thompson, Sandra A. (eds.), Interaction and grammar, 277–327. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stivers, Tanya (2008). Stance, alignment, and affiliation during storytelling: When nodding is a token of affiliation. Research on Language & Social Interaction 41(1):31–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stivers, Tanya, & Rossano, Federico (2010). A scalar view of response relevance. Research on Language & Social Interaction 43(1):49–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Svennevig, Jan (2008). Trying the easiest solution first in other-initiation of repair. Journal of Pragmatics 40(2):333–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkinson, Sue, & Kitzinger, Celia (2006). Surprise as an interactional achievement: Reaction tokens in conversation. Social Psychology Quarterly 69(2):150–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wu, Ruey-Jiuan Regina (2006). Initiating repair and beyond: The use of two repeat-formatted repair initiations in Mandarin conversation. Discourse Processes 41(1):67–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Rossi Supplementary Materials

Rossi Supplementary Materials

Download Rossi Supplementary Materials(File)
File 458.8 KB