Prosodic Variation for Topic Shift and Other Functions in Local Contrasts in Conversation

Speakers and listeners have been shown to use phonetic cues to help them in tracking the ongoing structure of conversational interaction, but fragmentation between qualitative and quantitative research means that the forms and functions of these cues have been given varying characterizations. The current study explores prosodic variation in contrastive structures in conversational data, using a combined methodology adopting aspects from both qualitative (conversation analysis) and quantitative (experimental phonetics/phonology) approaches. Statistical and conversation-analytical methods used together reveal relationships between prosodic variation and interactional function, such as variations in pitch range across adjacent turns being linked to the presence of 'stepwise' topic changes.