The roles of pause in speech expression

Abstract

To study the behavior of the pause within the temporal structure of the speech, the combination of perceptual and acousticphonetic analysis is used for the delineation and measurement of the interruption of the audible flow of a theatrical interpretation performed by a single actor.Pauses were classified according to structural, functional, distributional and temporal criteria.The relevance of pause in structuring the oral discourse and in expressing emotions and attitudes is discussed.