A prosodic and pragmatic study of sarcasm : (im)politeness in Cantonese debate competitions

Abstract

This paper outlines the important relationship between prosody and pragmatic functions of rhetorical devices in debate speeches, and their influence on the interpretation of (im)politeness. Authentic examples are drawn from Cantonese debate competitions for the study. Acoustic parameters such as F0 contour, F0 variability and syllabic duration are measured to see how sarcasm is encoded and manifested by vocal inflections on syllables and in sentential prosody. To convey sarcasm, the stressed syllables are lengthened, are with marked F0 ranges, and have a lower mean of F0. Phonological features of interrogative questions in conveying sarcasm show that the lexical tones is affected with the coexistence of sentential intonation. The sentence-final particle may sometimes be changed to a tone that is lower than its regular lexical tone under the influence of an interrogative tone. In the study of linguistic resources at pragmatic level, attention will be paid to the functions ofle1and the use of rhetorical devices such as simile, metaphor, irony and hyperbole. Rhetorical devices are used sometimes in combination with an analogy in such a way that the speaker could directly or indirectly attack the personal attributes of the addressee.

Participants in debate competitions are on an equal-footing relationship. However, debate competition is a confrontational setting where verbal aggression is likely to take place, resulting in highly dynamic negotiations of facework between participants. Facework will be discussed with respect to the Cantonese notion of face. The study of impoliteness presented in this M.A. dissertation intends to shed light on how (im)politeness strategies are expressed by different prosodic patterns and rhetorical devices.