For this essay, I have chosen prosody for both English and ASL text. Prosody is defined as “the patterns of stress and intonation in a language”. In English, prosody is known as pauses, falling intonation, pitch, tone, etc. Whereas ASL prosody is body movements, speed of signing, eyebrow movement, etc. (Winston, 2000). For this assignment, I have reviewed both English and ASL videos to show prosody in both languages.
Prosody, the suprasegmental system made up of intonation, stress, rhythm, and pitch (Hatch, 1992) are found within spoken languages. On a daily basis, we are able to hear prosody in languages. Unaware it’s quite natural to distinguish prosody in conversations but to identify these features within pre-recorded videos are a bit complicated. …show more content…
After this statement, he chooses a student to his left. He says to her “Alright Jasmine (pause) Why↗? There is a slight rise in his voice, which indicates a question (“Pitch”). Another example of pitch is found at (00:02:24.005-00:02:30.480), he says “so, here we have the ↗government making a decision and they give away a lot of money, ↗right? The rises in intonation are clear in the words “government and right”. Throughout the entire video the teacher using a lot of pauses and rises in intonation, in which is “elicit collaborative completion of turns or completion of turn by others in a conversation” (Hatch, 1992).
The Ted talk video “Does closed captions still serve Deaf people” is another good video that shows emphasis on certain words and rising intonation. For example, the speaker walks onto the stage …show more content…
Beginning at 00:00:19.130-00:00:20.390, she says “HELLO”. She leans forward and her are brows are lowered. These two features are in fact prosodic features in ASL. “Torso movements create spatial patterns and can cause prominence in an utterance” (Winston, 2000). In this case, she is greeting the audience. Another example of body shifts occur at (00:01:30.455-00:01:35.725) where she introduces the name of the teacher and tells the audience his occupation. She signs “TEACH BIOLOGY (leans forward) SCIENCE (shifts body slightly towards the left). The shift in her body indicates the differences of the subjects. It’s equivalent to voicing “biology and science”. Also another prosodic marker used within the video is eye gaze. “Signers look at their hands to direct the watcher to the signing” (Winston, 2000). To support this claim, she signs “WELCOME W-O-S-C, W-E-S-T-E-R-N O-R-E-G-A-N S-T-A-T-E College, W-O-S-C”. When she begins signing, “W-E-S-T-E-R-N”, she looks at her hands and then back to the audience. Others features within this sentence include a head nod after “college” and a hand clasp after the
Prosody, the suprasegmental system made up of intonation, stress, rhythm, and pitch (Hatch, 1992) are found within spoken languages. On a daily basis, we are able to hear prosody in languages. Unaware it’s quite natural to distinguish prosody in conversations but to identify these features within pre-recorded videos are a bit complicated. …show more content…
After this statement, he chooses a student to his left. He says to her “Alright Jasmine (pause) Why↗? There is a slight rise in his voice, which indicates a question (“Pitch”). Another example of pitch is found at (00:02:24.005-00:02:30.480), he says “so, here we have the ↗government making a decision and they give away a lot of money, ↗right? The rises in intonation are clear in the words “government and right”. Throughout the entire video the teacher using a lot of pauses and rises in intonation, in which is “elicit collaborative completion of turns or completion of turn by others in a conversation” (Hatch, 1992).
The Ted talk video “Does closed captions still serve Deaf people” is another good video that shows emphasis on certain words and rising intonation. For example, the speaker walks onto the stage …show more content…
Beginning at 00:00:19.130-00:00:20.390, she says “HELLO”. She leans forward and her are brows are lowered. These two features are in fact prosodic features in ASL. “Torso movements create spatial patterns and can cause prominence in an utterance” (Winston, 2000). In this case, she is greeting the audience. Another example of body shifts occur at (00:01:30.455-00:01:35.725) where she introduces the name of the teacher and tells the audience his occupation. She signs “TEACH BIOLOGY (leans forward) SCIENCE (shifts body slightly towards the left). The shift in her body indicates the differences of the subjects. It’s equivalent to voicing “biology and science”. Also another prosodic marker used within the video is eye gaze. “Signers look at their hands to direct the watcher to the signing” (Winston, 2000). To support this claim, she signs “WELCOME W-O-S-C, W-E-S-T-E-R-N O-R-E-G-A-N S-T-A-T-E College, W-O-S-C”. When she begins signing, “W-E-S-T-E-R-N”, she looks at her hands and then back to the audience. Others features within this sentence include a head nod after “college” and a hand clasp after the