TOWARDS A PHONETICS OF THE DISCOURSE

Abstract

Experimental phonetics research had been characterized since its beginnings to very recent date, by studies in which the analyses were limited to the Word level. Of course, these limitations were due to the instruments of analysis and not to the researcher. Studies in Experimental Phonetics beyond the word level are of a recent date as a consequence recent developments in speech technology. The study presented her comes from my dissertation (Simões: 1987) which deals with Experimental Phonetics at the discourse level. The realization of this type f study can be accomplished only if new techniques of segmentation and analysis are developed. For this reason, techniques of segmentation and analysis are developed for the purpose of the present study. The present discourse analysis deals with the relationship between lower level linguistic components (phonetics/phonology) and higher level linguistic components (syntax, discourse) from the experimental analysis of the temporal organization of the three extreme vowels [i], [a], and [u]. D. Klatt’s (1976) model, based on American English, is examined in order to know how it could be adapted to Brazilian Portuguese. Following this comparison, rules are proposed to predict sound-segment duration of Brazilian Portuguese in continuous speech for the particular case of the informant in this study. Data for this investigation were obtained from one speaker from Rio de Janeiro who read a text for children containing over one thousand words.