Couper-Kuhlen2020

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Couper-Kuhlen2020
BibType ARTICLE
Key Couper-Kuhlen2020
Author(s) Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen
Title The prosody of other-repetition in British and North American English
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Repair initiation, Surprise, epistemics
Publisher
Year 2020
Language English
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Journal Language in Society
Volume 49
Number 4
Pages 521-552
URL Link
DOI https://doi.org/10.1017/S004740452000024X
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Howpublished
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Abstract

This study explores the link between prosody and other-repetition in a moderately large collection from everyday English talk-in-interaction (n = 200). British English and North American English cases were analysed separately in order to track possible varietal differences. Of initial interest was the question whether focal pitch accents might disambiguate among other-repetition actions, both those related to repair and those that go beyond repair. The results indicate that only two out of six possible other-repetition actions are associated with distinct focal pitch contours in the two varieties. For all other repair and beyond-repair actions speakers use many of the same pitch contours nondistinctively. Overall, falling contours appear more frequently in British other-repetitions, while rising contours are more frequent in North American other-repetitions. In conclusion, it is argued that in addition to pitch contour, prosodic features such as pitch span, loudness, and timing are crucial in distinguishing other-repetition actions, as are nonprosodic factors such as epistemic access (often reflected in oh-prefacing) and visible behavior.

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