How emotions are made in colloquial intonation

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1344/efe-2023-32-155-168

Keywords:

intonation, emotions, colloquial conversation, phonopragmatics, theory of constructed emotions

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyse how emotions are expressed in Spanish intonation. The data here obtained will help determining whether or not a constructivist approach to emotions (Barret, 2017) is validated by a prosodic analysis. To this end, the melodic features in a corpus of 70 colloquial utterances have been examined, in order to establish the prosodic indicators left by the speakers when they express their emotions. The results seem to support some general tendencies, i.e. the existence of a general pattern of melodic features associated to the expression of emotions, which is significantly manifested in the statistics. However, the results do not seem to support the hypothesis of the existence of exclusive prosodic traces for each emotion. From the latter, it can be established that the prosodic behaviour of speakers seems to support a constructivist approach to emotions.

Author Biography

Xose A. Padilla, Universidad de Alicante

The aim of this paper is to analyse how emotions are expressed in Spanish intonation. The data here obtained will help determining whether or not a constructivist approach to emotions (Barret, 2017) is validated by a prosodic analysis. To this end, the melodic features in a corpus of 70 colloquial utterances have been examined, in order to establish the prosodic indicators left by the speakers when they express their emotions. The results seem to support some general tendencies, i.e. the existence of a general pattern of melodic features associated to the expression of emotions, which is significantly manifested in the statistics. However, the results do not seem to support the hypothesis of the existence of exclusive prosodic traces for each emotion. From the latter, it can be established that the prosodic behaviour of speakers seems to support a constructivist approach to emotions.

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Published

2023-11-28

How to Cite

Padilla, X. A. (2023). How emotions are made in colloquial intonation. Journal of Experimental Phonetics, 32, 155–168. https://doi.org/10.1344/efe-2023-32-155-168

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