The Contribution of Tonal Scaling to the Perception of Politeness in Catalan

It has been proposed in the literature that prosody plays a role in the expression of politeness. The present paper attempts to explore the contribution of tonal scaling to the expression of paralinguistic meanings. More specifically, it examines the relationship between pitch height and the degree of perceived politeness in yes–no questions in Central Catalan. Studies on the biologically–determined use of pitch (Gussenhoven, 2002; Nilsenova, 2006; Ohala, 1984, 1996) claim that high or rising F0 can convey politeness. Experimental studies have found that use of a higher pitch range or use of higher peaks is typical of polite utterances (Álvarez & Blondet, 2003; Maekawa, 1999; Orozco, 2006). Yet, other studies (Culpeper, 2005) have shown that higher pitch can also be associated to impoliteness. In order to test whether pitch height correlates positively or negatively with politeness, two continua were created by gradually increasing and decreasing the final boundary tone of a rising and a falling yes–no question. 20 native speakers of Central Catalan took part in the experiment. They had to compare stimuli in pairs and also rate the degree of politeness that each stimulus conveyed in isolation. Results obtained in both tasks and for both continua point to the same direction: the degree of perceived perception gradually decreases when the pitch height of the final boundary tone is increased.