Open Access

Plinio A. Barbosa

• This chapter presents a panorama of experimental prosody research and examples of the applications of this knowledge in three areas. After introducing prosody in a scientific context, its two basic functions are discussed: segmentation and prominence. The classic acoustic parameters of fundamental frequency, duration, intensity, and voice quality are presented with examples allowing the reader to have a glimpse on how to measure them within a functional perspective. The prosodic design of an utterance as a whole serves linguistic, paralinguistic and extralinguistic functions. Four sections are devoted to applications of prosody research: in a clinical perspective with an example of the prosody of a Parkinsonian patient, in forensic phonetics, in the framework of foreign language research by comparing L1 and L2 English, as well as in the context of the professional use of voice, which have several applications in the industry of entertainment. Examples of Brazilian Portuguese, German, French and English are given in order to point out some of the prosodic differences across these languages in distinct speaking styles.