Purpose: An interview is a form of verbal communication that utilizes prosody to influence the heuristics of listeners, in which quick and guided understanding is realized. To date, this sort of heuristics coupled with prosody information (HP) is not fully researched. This study attempts to explore how HP is organized to affect the fast judgment of listeners that grantees the desired communication in the context of WTO debate interviews.
Method: This study builds a corpus of interview videos from WTO official website on WTO rules. A threshold value of acoustic sound is employed to automatically segment HP from common prosodies. These HPs are further classified into 9 categories. The distribution of specific HP showing the availability and scarcity of heuristics is done with Kurt Function.
Conclusion: This study finds that the prosody is closely related to heuristics, and is constructed into heuristic prosody to impact the communication by guiding listeners’ judgment and understanding. Self-efficacy is the most prosodized heuristic in WTO interviews.
Implication: Educational and training organizations, media interviewers, and interviewees who focus on the impact of communicative effects through acoustic cues may improve speakers’ performance with the practice of HP and ensure the expected communicative effect in interviews.