PROSODIC FEATURES OF BAD-NEWS AND GOOD-NEWS IN CONVERSATION

Recent work suggests the importance of integrating prosodic research w ith research on the sequential organization of ordinary conversation. This paper examines how interactants use prosody as a resource in the joint accomplishment of delivered news as good or bad. Analysis of app roximately 100 naturally occurring conversational news deliveries reve als that both good and bad news are presented and received with charac teristic prosodic features that are consistent with expression of joy and sorrow, respectively, as described in the existing literature on p rosody. These prosodic features are systematically deployed in each of the four turns of the prototypical news delivery sequence. Proposals and ratifications of the valence of a delivery are often made prosodic ally in the initial turns of the prototypical four-turn news delivery, while lexical assessments of news are often made later. When prosody is used to propose the valence of an item of news, subsequent lexical assessments tend to be alignments with these earlier ascriptions of va lence, rather than independent appraisals of the news.