The Role of Speech Prosody in Comprehending Speaker’s Communicative Content
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Abstract
Speech prosody remains a neglected linguistic phenomenon that is yet to gain deserving scholastic attention. This study attempts to rouse deserving attention to prosody. It is aimed at describing the critical role of speech prosody in understanding the communicative content of the speaker in speech acts. The study draws insights from John Austin’s Speech Act Theory (SAT). SAT explains how the speaker’s intentions embedded in communicative content exert effects on the listener. The study takes up the qualitative approach and employs content analysis to analyse the data gathered from twenty (20) focus group discussants, observation and internet and library print materials. The analysis proves speech prosody to be an essential cognitive ingredient of phonology that is deeply involved in the generative construction and analysis of speeches and meanings and their effects. It also conveys the speaker’s intentions in various regards. The analysis shows that the speaker’s intentions are conveyed as the communicative content of speech acts, which exert some effects on the listener. The paper concludes that prosody is situated in all levels of language analysis and plays a significant role in speech acts and meaning comprehension. It recommends that learners should be consistently taught how to understand and interpret the speaker’s encoded message(s) through speech prosody.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Ifeyinwa Chukwuokoro, PhD, Ebere Florence Adoromike, Veronica Onwanyi Ubi, PhD (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Ifeyinwa Chukwuokoro, PhD, Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki, Nigeria.
Department of English and Literary Studies, Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki, Nigeria.
Ebere Florence Adoromike, Northumbria University, UK.
Department of International Project Management, Northumbria University, UK.
Veronica Onwanyi Ubi, PhD, Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki, Nigeria.
Department of Art and Social Science Education, Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki, Nigeria.
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