Abstract
Two studies explored whether the appropriateness of a speaker’s prosodic style (i.e., pitch, volume, speech rate) affects observers’ judgments of speakers’ and listeners’ competence. Adults and school-aged children watched videos of speakers addressing a listener using prosodic styles that were either appropriate (e.g., adult-directed for an adult listener) or inappropriate (e.g., child-directed for an adult listener). Adults, but not children, awarded higher ratings in some domains of communicative competence to speakers and listeners when a speaker used appropriate prosodic styles.
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