Contribuições prosódicas para a construção da crítica no discuso político

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the contribution of prosody in the expressions of attitudes in televised political-electoral debates, showing the argumentation role of prosody in these communicative situations. In order to do so, we conducted an acoustic study aiming to observe how the fundamental frequency (F₀), the duration and intensity behave in the expression of criticism in statements extracted from four debates with candidates for the Minas Gerais State government in 2014 Brazilian elections. We made measurements in global points of F₀ and calculated the articulation and speech rates, together with the average duration of pauses and unstressed syllables, statements’ final tonic syllable and average intensity of utterance. Our results showed that speakers make adjustments in the prosodic parameters during the expression of attitudes and these adjustments work as nuances shaping the criticism. Finally, criticism can be characterized with higher F₀ values and different speech rate compared to attitudinally neutral statements.