Intonation, Visuals, Text, and Narrative

Abstract

It is precisely because academic CPs tend to be heavily tilted toward the informative dimension that dynamic intonation becomes an increasingly important factor in performing an effective CP. A speaker’s consideration for intonation allows the audience to better grasp rhetorical moves and linguistic relationships, serving as a conductor to explicate the notes of the narrative. Visual displays, beyond the text written on CP slides, also often serve as a semiotic focal point, especially in scientific CPs. Visuals need not only to be comprehensible to the viewers in order to justify their appearance in the research narrative, but will often require some type of spoken metadiscourse to accompany them. This short chapter looks at some problems and suggestions regarding the importance of intonation and the narration of visual elements.