Jennifer Zhang, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, USA
Julie Prentice, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, USA

Ward. N. 2019. Prosodic Patterns in English Conversation. New York: Cambridge University Press.

In recent years, there has been an increased focus on the importance of prosodic features, such as rhythm and intonation, for both educators and researchers. Not only does suprasegmental accuracy play a role in general intelligibility of a second language, it can also express the speaker’s intentions or emotional state beyond the literal meaning of the words spoken. Use of certain intonation contours can cue socially important nuances like sarcasm or irony, emphasis, and politeness. The realizations of such prosodic features are culturally specific, and a lack of awareness of appropriate uses of English prosodic patterns can lead to misunderstandings.

This book provides an extensive and enlightening review of prosodic constructions in natural dialogue and expands beyond the prosodic features used for simple exchanges and basic routines commonly taught in the classroom, such as question intonation and basic requests for information. The first few chapters focus on specific prosodic patterns. Each chapter presents a wide variety of possible interpretations of a given intonation contour, discussing stronger and weaker forms when appropriate, and proposes a “core meaning” to help the reader conceptualize a more holistic view of its applications. It should be noted that the book’s intent is a description of these features and not a manual for the teaching of such features to learners of English. That said, the book can be a valuable resource to English language instructors who wish to deepen their understanding of the system of prosody.

For example, chapter 2 presents bookended narrow pitch regions. Despite its more technical name, it can be conceptualized as the “[But] Consider This” construction, used to offer information to the listener in the form of a contrast, contradiction, or complaint, among other functions. The downstep construction (chapter 3) can be used to cue actions under specific conditions, e.g. when there is an obvious or expected action from the listener. The late pitch peak (chapter 6) has a myriad of uses ranging from making suggestions, invitations, requests, or threats; to imagining, reminiscing, assessing, and judging. Collectively, these functions may indicate a delayed or hypothetical call to action. Chapter 8 also discusses superimposed combinations of prosodic constructions and how to potentially interpret the results.

While chapters 9 and 10, which address the use of big data and principal components analyses to identify prosodic contours, are somewhat technical and perhaps beyond the reach and/or interest level of non-linguists, the other chapters of the book provide an understanding of prosody that can function as a lens by which to view materials and curriculum and, if needed, challenge commonly-held but simplistic views of the role of properties of intonation, for example. As Ward notes, a prosodic pattern within a dialogue is “a multi-part package of information” (p. 2). When understood as such, then, familiarity with at least some of the complexity of these parts can be beneficial to English language instructors who have as their goal to help learners be more proficient in spoken conversational English. By virtue of its analysis of prosody in dialogue, this book acts as a strong reminder to instructors that features of prosody do not exist in isolation and therefore should not be analyzed or taught in isolation.

In a language classroom with constraints of time, diversity of student population, and demands of existing curriculum, an instructor can nonetheless find sections of this book useful as a means of raising students’ awareness of prosodic features that are not usually addressed in most language classrooms. Providing students with specific constructions (in dialogue) or providing strings of identical words that have different prosodic features and discussing differences in meaning or function, for example, can help generate this awareness and sensitivity to different prosodic features. Downstep constructions (chapter 3) can be used to expand on the topic of making requests by incorporating the prerequisites, per se, to its use, e.g. whether the listener can reasonably be expected to fulfill the request. Selected strategies for turn-holding (chapter 11) could also be incorporated without extensive materials development. Chapter 13 on stance-related constructions provides a clear description of the prosodic features that communicate empathy, factuality, assertion of independence, and appeal to shared knowledge. Without significant expenditure of time, an instructor with an awareness of these features could weave this knowledge into existing lessons, for example by incorporating the prosodic features that correlate with empathy into a lesson on giving advice, or the prosodic features that correlate with assertion of factuality into a direction-giving activity.

Some knowledge of linguistics is advantageous when approaching this book: at minimum, general knowledge of how to read and orally recreate drawn intonation contours. As author Nigel Ward notes, using the audio files found on www.cambridge.org/ward is key to a clear understanding of the features being described. In fact, he suggests listening and speaking the words or phrases aloud since words are processed in the left hemisphere of the brain and prosody mostly in the right. For non-linguists less familiar with the descriptions of prosody in general, use of audio files is especially important.

Prosodic Patterns in English Conversation can be a valuable resource for teachers with some previous knowledge of intonation who are seeking to expand their awareness of the prosodic system of English, or for educators in pursuit of an overall introduction to how research is conducted on prosodic contours.

Julie Prentice is a lecturer in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), where she teaches courses in academic writing and ESL pronunciation. She holds a master's degree in TESL and spent many years teaching English in Asia.