Prosodic Aspects of Warrwa Narratives
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292421848 Prosodic Aspects of Warrwa Narratives Thesis · November 2006 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.5082.9841 CITATIONS READS 0 368 1 author: Bella Ross Monash College 56 PUBLICATIONS 400 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: E-texts versus texts: Developing pedagogical practice View project Critical approaches to educational technologies View project All content following this page was uploaded by Bella Ross on 31 January 2016. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. Prosodic Aspects of Warrwa Narratives Prosodiske aspekter ved narrativer på Warrwa Belinda Ross Student number: 20043062 Supervisor: William McGregor Afdeling for Lingvistik, Aarhus Universitet 2006 138,350 characters (with spaces) Table of Contents Abstract ...............................................................................................................3 Abstrakt...............................................................................................................4 1 Preliminaries.....................................................................................................5 1.1 Aims of this Study......................................................................................5 1.2 Warrwa......................................................................................................6 1.3 Narratology................................................................................................9 1.4 Oral Narratives.........................................................................................15 1.5 The Study of Pause ..................................................................................16 2 Methods and Materials....................................................................................20 3 Results............................................................................................................24 3.1 Overview of Data.....................................................................................26 3.1.1 Intonation..........................................................................................26 3.1.2 Pause.................................................................................................30 3.2 Frames, Episodes and Events ...................................................................35 3.2.1 Performance Frames..........................................................................36 3.2.2 Narrative Frames...............................................................................38 3.2.3 Dramatic Frames ...............................................................................45 3.3 Quantitative Pause Results .......................................................................51 3.3.1 Pause Duration and Frequency...........................................................51 3.3.2 Pause and Narrative Types ................................................................60 3.3.3 Pause Types ......................................................................................63 4 Discussion ......................................................................................................69 4.1 Overview of Prosodic Features.................................................................69 4.2 The Functions of Prosodic Features..........................................................73 5 Conclusion......................................................................................................79 References .........................................................................................................81 Appendix 1. Text 3. Leaving the Land ............................................................87 2 Abstract This study aims to provide a qualitative and quantitative investigation of the prosodic aspects of pause and intonation of oral narratives of the Kimberley language Warrwa. The study of prosodic aspects of oral narratives has previously received little attention in the literature, as has the study of prosodic aspects of Australian aboriginal languages until recently. One of the aims of this study is to add to these areas of study. The data used for this study comprises approximately 41 minutes of recorded speech by the last two remaining full speakers. The data was labelled using the speech analysis software package PRAAT and statistics were calculated using the statistical package MiniTab. Statistical results of pause durations and syntactic boundary strength reveal a clear correlation: the stronger the syntactic boundary, the longer the pause duration. This result is in accordance with studies of other unrelated languages, for example English and French. Findings furthermore reveal a heavy usage of pause, where pauses are both frequent and may be very long, suggesting that the notion of a maximum pause duration and pause percentage be re- evaluated. As a result I conclude that pause plays an integral and intentional role in Warrwa narratives of adding to the storytelling performance. 3 Abstrakt Dette speciale har som formål at give en kvalitativ og kvantitativ undersøgelse af prosodiske aspekter af pause og intonation ved mundtlige narrativer af Kimberley sproget Warrwa. Studiet af prosodiske aspekter af mundtlige narrativer har tidligere været genstand for lidt opmærksomhed i litteraturen, tilsvarende studiet af prosodiske aspekter i oprindelige australske sprog. Et af hovedmålene med denne opgave er at tilføje til disse studieområder. Materialet brugt i denne opgave består af cirka 41 minutters optaget tale fra de sidste to som behersker Warrwa fuldt ud. Materialet var optegnet ved hjælp af sproganalyse softwareprogrammet PRAAT og statistikker var udregnet ved hjælp af statistikprogrammet MiniTab. Statistiske resultater af pause varighed og syntaktisk grænsestyrke afslører en klar korrelation: jo stærkere den syntaktiske grænse desto længere er pausevarigheden. Dette resultat er i overensstemmelse med undersøgelser af andre ubeslægtede sprog, som for eksempel Engelsk eller Fransk. Resultater afslører yderligere et stort brug af pauser, både hyppige og meget lange, som tyder på at begrebet af en maksimum pausevarighed og pause procentdel må revurderes. Følgelig konkluderer jeg at pause spiller en vigtig og tilsigtet rolle ved narrativer i Warrwa og beriger den mundtlige udførelse. 4 1 Preliminaries 1.1 Aims of this Study This thesis will investigate oral Warrwa narratives, focusing on the phonetic aspects of intonation and pause, in relation to the structure of the narratives. This study will reveal that the Warrwa narratives contain a high degree of pausing, where pauses are both frequent and of a long duration. Pauses have two functions: the rhetorical function and the demarcative function. The rhetorical function acts as a storytelling device of adding to the oral performance, while the demarcative function of pause acts to segment the narratives into smaller syntactic units of meaning. This study furthermore aims to investigate the functions of pause and intonation and their correlation with the structure of the narratives. I will reveal that pause and intonation are more prominent at structural boundaries within the narratives. Using statistical comparisons of pause durations and syntactic boundary strength, I will reveal that the stronger the syntactic boundary, the longer the pause duration. In addition, this study aims to contribute to the growing field of work within research into Australian languages and intonational studies, as well as the field of narratology within lesser known languages such as Australian languages. Previously, intonational studies have largely focused on European languages such as English, Dutch and Swedish (e.g. Ladd 1996), while Australian languages have received very little attention. Previous studies of the intonation of Australian languages have examined Dyirbal (King 1994, 1999), Iwaidja (Birch 1999, 2002), Kayardild (Fletcher, Evans & Round 2002), Bininj Gun-wok (Fletcher & Evans 2002; Bishop 2002; Bishop & Fletcher 2005) and Dalabon (Ross 2003; Fletcher et al. 2004). Previous studies of non- Indo-European languages include Cayuga (Dyck 2001), Unangan (Taff & Rozelle 2001) and Lushootseed (Beck 1999). The intonation of Warrwa has not been the subject of any documented research. 5 Previous work in the field of narratives within non-European languages includes McGregor’s study of the structure of Gooniyandi narratives (1987a, 1987b, 1989), Tedlock’s study of oral narratives in the Indian language Zuni (1983), Carroll’s study of the structure of Kunwinjku narratives (1996), Muecke et al.’s study of Bunuban narratives regarding Pigeon the outlaw (1985), and Klapproth’s study of narratives in Yankuntjatjara and Pitjantjatjara (2004) based on her earlier PhD thesis. These studies have explored such issues as narrative structure, methods pertaining to appropriate transcription methods of oral narratives, as well as the cultural aspects of the narratives. 1.2 Warrwa Warrwa is today an almost dead language with just one remaining full speaker. The data used in this study consists of the speech of the last two full speakers, Maudie Lennard and Freddy Marker (deceased), both of who were not regular Warrwa speakers. The death of Warrwa can most likely be traced back to the last two decades of the 19th century, during which time the Warrwa speaking community was decimated due to the establishment