This is the continuation of my first post about Prosody, and why we should cue it.

To show you how so very important prosody is in communication, I’ve embedded two short videos of myself cueing several short sentences, one with prosody, one without. See which one you can get the most meaning out of:

WITHOUT PROSODY

WITH PROSODY

What were the differences?

In the second video, I used prosodic markers like longer and shorter pauses, elongated words/vowels to show stress, and body language. You could far more easily tell what the most important words were, and what meanings I meant to convey.

So, would you rather watch someone cueing with, or without prosody?

You probably said “WITH!!”
I agree. As I mentioned in my first post on this subject, watching someone who cues with almost no prosody can be boring. They also convey much less meaning. For this reason, it is important to get into the habit of cueing prosody. Especially if you’re a transliterator… Different speakers will have very different ways of using prosody.

Stay tuned for part III!