An informal reading and discussion group on prosody

Schlaug, G., Marchina, Sarah., & Norton, A. (2008), From Singing to Speaking: Why Singing May Lead to Recovery of Expressive Language Function in Patients with Broca’s Aphasia, Music Perception.

Venue: room 36-537 on the 5th floor of building 36 (http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?mapterms=36&mapsearch=go)

Prosody, which includes characteristics of an utterance such as its intonational and rhythmic/timing aspects, as well as the structural, emotional, attitudinal and physiological factors that influence them, is of growing interest to a variety of disciplines, including linguistics, engineering and computer science, and cognitive science, as well as medical science.  But it can be challenging to read and understand studies of this topic in these very different disciplines, and to see how they might relate to each other.  Several of us have decided to organize an informal discussion group on Thursday afternoons 5:15 to 6:15, to provide a forum for discussion of terminology, methodology, theories and practice related to questions about how prosody works in spoken language.  The discussion will center on questions and issues raised by those who attend; we'll spend the first 5 minutes of each meeting generating an agenda.

To provide material for initial discussion, we suggest reading the above publication; suggestions for future readings are welcome.  We may consider generating an online annotated bibliography of readings on prosody from different disciplines.

Pseudo-Assignment:  Many cartoons, like the one at the top of this website, hinge on prosodic matters.  If you run across one or two such cartoons, send us a scanned version and we'll post it.