The Role of Prosodic Features in Conversational Interaction : Hard Talk a Case Study

Abstract

This study aims to look into the relationships between prosodic features from phonological perspective and interactional relationships and sequence organization from conversation analysis (CA) view. There are specific prosodic cues that speakers employ to signal to one another when it is their turn to talk in any speech situation. These cues serve as signs to let other people know when it is the speaker's turn to talk.  It is important to demonstrate that some prosodic patterns indicate the end or continuation of a turn. Prosodic orientation, such as intonation and tone patterns, are hypothesized to reveal information about participants' matching and non-matching of a prior turn. The consistent use of the same pitch height indicates that there is agreement among the participants on a specific situation. PRAAT, a computer program  is used for doing acoustic analysis to conduct the prosodic analysis following Ladefoged’s model. It is supposed that when the speaker makes a low pitch, he is no more interested in the topic raised or no more excited, but when there is a high pitch that means there is more to be added and some significant issues can be shown However, prosodic orientation is obviously used in political interviews in a manner similar to that of ordinary speech. As well as Political interviews commonly employ pauses, interrupted speech, and reasoning, some of which show a particular orientation to the preceding turns.