2022.02.08 – 0404 – Pauses As Intonational Devices In Quotes and Sub-Clauses
They are used as intonational devices in quotes, brackets/parenthesis and sub-clauses
As we saw previously when we talked about pitch and intonation, we leave a micro-gap either side of a quote from someone else to indicate that they are their words, not ours. The quote itself is often also said in a slightly different pitch and at a slower speed:
“Perkins told us [pause] ‘I’ll sue if those allegations are repeated’ [pause] and then thumped our reporter in the chest”.
“The company says it’s [pause] the best camera of its kind [pause] on the market”.
Similarly, the pause is used to verbalise a phrase that would perhaps be a sub-clause or in brackets, in the written word:
“And you can get her new novel [pause] which is the second in the ‘Blandford’ trilogy [pause] with our exclusive discount code”.
","author_name":"Peter Stewart"}