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Thursday, June 3, 2021

Understanding Speaker Attitude and Patterns for Clear Communication

 
What is Speaker Attitude  

Speaker attitude can be signaled through the use of  pitch variation in intonation patterns:

👉Extreme high pitch or low pitch indicates anger

👉If we expand our range, i.e. higher pitch becomes higher and lower pitch becomes lower indicates deference.

👉Narrowing of pitch indicates boredom.


What are Tag Questions

Tag questions can display either rising-falling or raising intonations. Their meaning will differ with which of these intonations is applied.

Mary’s helpful, isn’t she? (rising intonation)

Mary’s helpful, isn’t she? (falling intonation)

When said with a rising intonation ,it means that the speaker clearly does not know whether Mary is helpful and wants the listener to provide information. With falling intonation ,indicates that the speaker believes that Mary is helpful and is just asking a confirmation from the listener


Basic Intonation Patterns

Rising – Falling Intonation

Susan bought a new sweater

The pitch raises at the major sentence stress, the first syllable of the word ‘sweater’ and falls over the second syllable of this word. The pitch of the entire sentence is called intonation pattern. The pattern in this sentence is called the raising-falling. It is the common intonation pattern in English and is characteristic of simple declarative sentences, commands and questions that begin with a wh-word, such as ‘who’, ’what’ or ‘how’

He wants to go home.

She gave him five dollars

Give her a sweater

What do you want to do with it

Rising Intonation

Did Susan buy a new sweater?

The pitch of the voice rises towards the end of the sentence. The intonation pattern in this case is the raising intonation and is characteristics of questions that require a simple yes or no.

Does he want to go home?

Did she give him five dollars?

Couldn’t she have seen him?

Do you want to give it to him?

Continuation Rise

Susan bought a sweater, new shoes and a new dress?

This intonation is termed as continuation, often used with lists. The pitch of the voice raises slightly on each list, indicating that the speaker has not yet finished speaking.

He bought apples, peaches, pears and oranges

I saw Esther, Jane, Neil and Susan 

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Communication Skills and Nonverbal Communication:

  • National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD): Listening (nidcd.nih.gov) - Provides information on effective listening skills, which are crucial for understanding speaker attitude.
  • American Psychological Association (APA): Nonverbal Communication (apa.org) - Explores nonverbal cues like tone, body language, and facial expressions that can reveal speaker attitude.

Public Speaking and Delivery:

  • Toastmasters International: https://www.toastmasters.org/ - A global organization dedicated to improving public speaking skills. Their website offers resources on vocal variety, body language, and effective delivery, all of which influence how an audience perceives the speaker's attitude.
  • National Communication Association (NCA): - A professional organization focused on communication research, education, and scholarship. Their website offers resources on speech analysis and interpreting speaker attitude.

Linguistics and Speech Patterns:

  • Journal of Language and Social Psychology:  (onlinelibrary.wiley.com) - A scholarly journal that publishes research on the relationship between language and social interaction, including how speech patterns can reveal speaker attitude.
  • Society for Linguistic Anthropology: - A professional organization focused on the study of language in its social and cultural context. Their website may offer resources on how language patterns can convey speaker attitude.

  • Book: Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World's Top Minds by Carmine Gallo (ISBN 0062206752) - Explores the communication techniques used by successful TED Talk speakers, including how they use vocal variety, body language, and language to convey their message and attitude effectively.

  • Article: How to Spot a Fake Smile (psychologytoday.com) by Psychology Today - Explains how to distinguish between genuine and fake smiles, which can be helpful in understanding speaker sincerity and attitude.
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