Organización prosódico-estructural del discurso oral. Estudio contrastivo de géneros: entrevista semiespontánea frente a conversación coloquial: doi: https://doi.org/10.31810/rsel.56.1.7

Antonio Hidalgo Navarro

Authors

Antonio Hidalgo Navarro Universidad de Valencia https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6534-4168

Keywords:

prosodic-discursive coreferentiality; principle of declination (PD); principle of hierarchy and recursivity (PH/PR); interactive-functional analysis model (IFA); Val.Es.Co. unit system

Abstract

This study addresses the prosodic-structural segmentation of oral discourse based on the hypothesis that the phonic chain is organized as a succession of cohesive blocks or intonation groups (IG) that function as units of cognitive processing and verbalization. The research proposes a methodological integration that combines the Val.Es.Co. hierarchical system (Briz and Val.Es.Co. Group 2014) for the delimitation of intentional units (acts) and the Interactive-Functional Analysis (IFA) intonational model (Hidalgo 2019) for the identification of sub-acts or internal prosodic constituents.
Through an acoustic analysis performed with Praat software (Boersma & Weenink, 1992–2026), the coreferentiality between the structure of acts and the behavior of the fundamental frequency (F0) is examined contrastively in two speech samples of different discursive genres: a semi-spontaneous interview and a colloquial interaction; in the first conversation, a 56-year-old informant with an upper-middle educational and socioeconomic background participates, while in the second, there are two interlocutors aged 25, also from an upper-middle background. The quantitative results confirm that acts composed of a single IG systematically comply with the Principle of Declination (PD). However, in acts with more than one IG, the melodic configuration is altered by the pragmatic load of the utterance.
While semi-spontaneous speech shows a relative balance between neutral and pragmatic acts (52% versus 48%), the colloquial register exhibits a clear dominance of the latter (58%). In this context, the [PD YES - PH/PR (Principle of Hierarchy or Recursivity) YES] prosodic grouping emerges as the predominant cohesive mechanism in the interactive corpus (55%). This evidence demonstrates that the PH/PR acts as a structural compensator, allowing the insertion of prominence and tonal resets without invalidating the global melodic unity of the communicative act.

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Author Biography

Antonio Hidalgo Navarro, Universidad de Valencia

Professor of Spanish Language in the Department of Spanish Philology at the Universitat de València, PhD in Hispanic Philology (1996) and recipient of the Extraordinary Doctoral Award (1997). My research has focused on the study of colloquial Spanish and, in particular, on the analysis of intonation and prosody in spoken language, as a founding member of the Val.Es.Co. research group (Valencia, Español Coloquial). I have published several reference books on Spanish phonetics and intonation, as well as numerous articles in prestigious national and international academic journals.

I have served as Principal Investigator of the Fonocortesía project (2010–2013) and have continuously participated in competitive research projects funded by regional and national institutions (1993–2028), devoted to urban sociolinguistics, discourse markers, melodic analysis of speech, pragmatic mitigation, and diachronic and diatopic variation in contemporary Spanish.

My research activity has also led to the creation of the spin-off company Tecnolingüística S.L., aimed at knowledge transfer and the provision of specialized linguistic services. I have been a visiting professor at various Spanish and international universities and have delivered courses and lectures at numerous academic and scientific institutions.

Since joining the Universitat de València in 1990, I have also carried out extensive academic management duties, serving as Head and Secretary of the Department of Spanish Philology, Director of the Master’s Degree in Hispanic Studies, and Coordinator of the Bachelor’s Degree in Hispanic Studies. I also regularly act as an external reviewer for numerous academic journals and publishing houses and participate in the organization of national and international R&D&I conferences and activities.

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Prosodic-structural organization of oral discourse. A contrastive study of genres: Semi-spontaneous interview vs. colloquial conversation

doi: https://doi.org/10.31810/rsel.56.1.7

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Antonio Hidalgo Navarro, Universidad de Valencia

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