Zur Wahrnehmung von Stille, Pause und Schweigen in akustisch-auditiven Untersuchungen aus prosodischer Perspektive
On the Perception of Silence, Pauses, and Remaining Silence in Acoustic-Auditory Studies from a Prosodic Perspective)

Summary/Abstract: The paper addresses the relationship between silence, pause, and speechlessness – three phenomena that are closely related yet fulfill different functions in linguistic interaction. While they are often treated as equivalent in everyday language use, linguistic analysis shows that each possesses distinct characteristics and that they cannot be used interchangeably. Particular attention is given to the question of how these phenomena can be prosodically captured, classified, and interpreted. It is emphasized that a purely acoustic analysis is insufficient, as perception and interpretation by the listener play a central role. The theoretical considerations are complemented by the examples from televised football commentaries, which provide a dynamic context for examining pauses and silence. These data allow for illustrating the different communicative functions of such phenomena in authentic, media-mediated speech situations. The main findings are presented in the form of clear visualizations that demonstrate the distribution of the phenomena under investigation. In this way, the paper contributes to a differentiated analysis of the “unsaid” – including its spoken variants – in language.

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