Intonation of Polish Public Appearances – from Press Conference to Sejm Rostrum

Jagoda Bloch

Pełny tekst artykułu English version of the article

Vocal signals are very important in making the desired impression. They are the main determinants of the first impression, which influences interpersonal relations. In most public appearances broadcast in the media, the speaker has an immense influence on the interest of the receiver and maintaining his attention. The article concerns the ways of delivering public appearances by politicians, civil servants and spokespersons. Speakers were chosen so that in each dominates a different prosodic element easily distinguished by receivers. Among the most common are: frequent use of pause, excessive use of stress, not ending the sentence with a full stop, flat intonation, inadequate emotional tone of voice. This one dominating feature in the speaker’s message influenced the poverty of melodic line. There was no effort to differentiate the way of presenting speeches, residing only on the most easily accessible feature. The analyzed examples are the most common media-present ways of speaking by public figures. They are an exemplification of reflections on the voice interpretation of a text: what elements of the spoken word can serve the purpose of the speaker, so that they make the desired impression on the audience.

KEYWORDS

intonation, stress/accent, meter, pause, prosody, public appearance, vocal behaviour, non-verbal communication