Tono: A linguistic ethnography of tone and voice in a Zapotec region.

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes pitch and phonation in the Zapotec and Spanish of a multilingual region of Oaxaca, Mexico. Based on several years of fieldwork I describe a range of functions for pitch and phonation. First I describe Zapotec lexical pitch accents and intonation and Spanish intonation. Then I turn to an examination of how pitch and phonation define several sociolinguistic speech registers in which prosodic dimensions of language meaningfully frame speech for pragmatic effects. High pitch is used in Zapotec to show respect for an interlocutor. Low pitch is an expression of authority over another speaker in Zapotec and the local Spanish. The examples I document demonstrate a gradient pitch continuum, in which higher pitch shows more respect and lower pitch shows more authority. A finding of this research is that speakers can go beyond the laryngeal limits of modal pitch by shifting phonations to show more respect or authority: falsetto phonation shows the greatest respect, breathy phonation the greatest authority. Finally, I examine how pitch and phonation play important roles in reported speech within narratives, allowing speakers to express their moral position on the words they are reporting. Here speakers construct meaning in the patterned configuration between a prosodic line of information structure and a propositional line of information structure. Voice qualities (high pitch, low pitch, pitch range, breathiness, creakiness, etc.) function as a layer of meaning on top of words that communicates the affective evaluation a speaker holds toward the words and propositions reproduced at a particular moment of dialogue. In the co-performance of prosody and segmental structure, phonation and pitch emerge as domains of linguistic coding expressive of the affect, attitude, and ideologies speakers hold regarding the content of their speech. As my analysis moves from phonetic and phonological descriptions, through the pragmatics of social registers, and to the metapragmatics of dialogic voice and moral stance, each level of analysis is dependent on the ones before, illustrating how language, culture, and society are semiotically intertwined in my field region.