Multiple-methods approaches to discourse topic structure

众所周知，人们在对话中不仅通过他们选择的词语来传达意义，而且还通过使用韵律来传达意思：音调、响度和其他声音特征的变化可以产生不同的含义，甚至传达与词语本身所暗示的相反的意思。目前关于韵律如何在对话中贡献和/或传达含义的研究存在方法之间的割裂。实验音系学的研究已经确定了在语言中一致使用音高(即语调)和其他韵律特征的常见结构模式，试图描述这些模式如何映射到一致的意义色调，尽管它们出现在不同的词汇环境中。心理语言学研究调查了韵律的变化如何影响听者理解他们每时每刻所听到的内容。从对话分析/语音学的角度对韵律变异如何在类似的对话功能中保持一致，同样是在内容不同的情况下进行了定性的详细描述。然而，这些不同的研究视角往往相互独立地运作。值得注意的是，语音学和心理语言学的研究往往忽略了语音学和心理语言学研究中的数量层面以及语调音系学提供的潜在抽象结构的归属，而语音学和心理语言学的研究往往忽略了丰富的对话语境对他们观察到的变异的影响。作为我博士研究的一部分，我进行的实验结合了语音学、语调音系学和心理语言学的方法，研究了韵律变异在指示口语话题变化中的作用。我已经开始通过参加各种国内和国际会议来交流这项研究，最近我提交了一份期刊出版物，报告了其中的一些结果。有了这个奖学金，我打算继续这种跨学科的方法，将我之前的实验结果与CA/语音学中使用的详细的定性方法结合在一起。在奖学金年度，我想进一步接受CA技术方面的培训，并将其应用到我的博士研究中。首先，我打算将我的受控语音产生实验关于话题转换的结果与CA关于类似交互作用的发现进行比较，以找出语调-音系学理论与CA之间的有用的接触点。其次，我计划进行一个将心理语言学方法与会话数据相结合的知觉实验，在我的博士研究期间对更多受控数据进行实验。我的研究对从事语调语音学、心理语言学和认知语言学领域的研究人员特别重要，因为它提供了一种跨学科的方法来研究所有这些群体感兴趣的主题。使用多种方法来研究韵律变异提供了一个独特的机会，可以促进我们对这些现象在各种语言环境中的使用的理解，并将历史上相互孤立的方法结合在一起。说话者和听话者在对话中分享意义的方式这一更广泛的问题，也可能会引起任何对认知、人类行为和互动以及一般交流感兴趣的人。我在奖学金期间的优先事项如下：(1)通过扩展我在CA领域的知识，继续我对韵律在沟通中的作用的跨学科方法，(2)通过出版物和出席会议来传播我的博士研究成果，以及(3)写一笔大规模的赠款来支持进一步的研究。

It is well known that people convey meaning in conversation not only with their choice of words, but also with the use of prosody: variations in pitch, loudness, and other characteristics of the sounds which can create different shades of meaning or even convey the opposite of what the words alone might suggest.Current research on how prosody contributes to and/or conveys meaning in conversation suffers from fragmentation between approaches. Research in experimental phonology has identified common structural patterns for the ways pitch (i.e. intonation) and other prosodic characteristics are consistently used within languages, with an attempt to describe how these patterns map to consistent shades of meaning despite the varying lexical context in which they appear. Psycholinguistic studies have investigated the ways in which variations in prosody affect how listeners understand what they hear on a moment-to-moment basis. Studies in the perspective of Conversation Analysis (CA)/Phonetics of Talk-in-Interaction have described in great qualitative detail the ways in which prosodic variation is consistent across similar conversational functions, again with different content. However, these different research perspectives often operate independently of one another. Notably, phonetics-in-interaction research tends to neglect the quantitative aspect apparent in phonetic and psycholinguistic investigations and the attribution of an underlying abstract structure provided by intonational phonology, while phonological and psycholinguistic investigations often ignore the effects of a rich conversational context on the variation they observe.Experiments carried out as part of my doctoral studies have investigated the role of prosodic variation in signalling topic change in spoken language, bringing together methods from phonetics, intonational phonology, and psycholinguistics. I have already begun communicating this research through participation in a variety of national and international conferences, and I have recently submitted a journal publication reporting some of these results.With this fellowship, I intend to continue this interdisciplinary approach, bringing together my previous experimental findings with the detailed qualitative approach used in CA/Phonetics of Talk-in-Interaction. During the fellowship year, I would like to gain further training in CA techniques and apply them to my doctoral research. First, I intend to compare the findings of my controlled phonetic production experiment on topic change to the CA findings on similar interactional functions, in order to identify useful points of contact between intonation-phonological theory and CA. Second, I plan to pilot a perceptual experiment combining psycholinguistic methods with conversational data, following up an experiment conducted on more controlled data during my PhD research.My research is of particular relevance to researchers working in the fields of intonational phonetics and phonology, psycholinguistics, and CA, by providing an interdisciplinary approach to a subject of interest to all of these groups. The use of multiple methods to investigate prosodic variation provides a unique opportunity to advance our understanding of the use of these phenomena in a variety of linguistic contexts and to bring together approaches which have historically been somewhat isolated from one another. The wider question of the means by which speakers and listeners share meaning in conversation may also interest anyone curious about cognition, human behaviour and interaction, and communication in general. My priorities for the period of the fellowship are as follows: (1) to continue my interdisciplinary approach to the role of prosody in communication by expanding my knowledge in the field of CA, (2) to disseminate the results of my doctoral research through publications and conference attendance, and (3) to write a large-scale grant to support further research.