Chapter 2. Manipulation of voices in the development of a story

In this paper I analyze how a storyteller manipulates the prosody and voice quality in her direct reported speech in a Japanese story about her girlfriend and her henpecked fiancé. While supporting Günthner’s (1999) theory that speakers make use of voicing, prosodic, and voice quality features to achieve various interactive goals, I also demonstrate that these goals do not necessarily apply to every use of direct reported speech in a story. Based on data from an audiotaped story in a naturally occurring conversation between two female friends in their late twenties, I demonstrate how the way that the storyteller changed her voice to enact her direct reported speech varied according to the developmental stage of the story. Although there was no marked prosody or change in voice quality in the initial stage, the story teller’s direct reported speech showed increased emotion and pitch movement from the middle to the final stages. I also demonstrate how this draws the recipient into the story world, and encourages the recipient to become an active and cooperative participant in constructing the story.