214 Advances in spoken discourse analysis
Finally, we may note the probability of there being a proclaiming tone.
This seems to follow naturally from the inbuilt ambiguity of this tone: a
falling tone serves to mark the tone unit as the vehicle of unshared information,
but this includes both now-relevant information about the world and information
about the piece of language that is being quoted.
For one further example of minimally engaged reading, consider the case
of someone idly reading out the titles of the books on the shelf in front of
her (a comparatively rare instance of a reading activity to which no communicative
purpose seems necessarily to accrue!).
//p the SOUND PATTern of ENGlish //
//p ENGlish phoNETics and phoNOLogy //These forms can be compared with probable conversational forms:
Q: Where did you read that?
A: //p in the SOUND pattern of ENGlish //
(or) //p in ENGlish phonetics and phoNOLogy //
ENGAGEMENT: 2
One consideration that probably limits the incidence of the kind of disengaged
mode I have just described in actual reading is that it depends on the reader
being able to process and verbalize the entire length of the tone unit without
hesitation or cognitive hold-up. The mechanical fluency and exaggerated
rhythmicality of the remembered line of verse is evidence of the way tone
units are pre-packed and articulated as a whole. In spontaneous speech, the
need for time to assemble each consecutive increment can be seen to impose
limitations on the length of tone units. Obviously the cognitive needs of a
reader are different from those of the speaker, but they are no less likely to
impose constraints. Instead of being involved in the complex business of
assembling an original utterance in real time, the reader has the equally
complex task of decoding—also in real time—an already assembled text.
Depending upon their skill in doing this, and also on the familiarity of
the text, we can expect the performance to exhibit the feature that commonly
accompanies hesitation pauses, zero (i.e. ‘level’) tone:
//o it was VERy //o GOOD to KNOW //o SOMEbody who
OWNED //p a CIRcus //This example need only differ from the multi-prominence version we examined
earlier in that the reader lacks the facility to deal with the printed item at
a single bite. The number and distribution of prominent syllables remain as
they were, and could be the result of a similar, non-listener sensitive, choice
procedure. The tone unit boundaries are the only difference, and if these
arise from cognitive need, they will indicate no necessary engagement with
the kind of contextual projection that would motivate them in interactive