Which term describes the stress, rhythm, and intonation along with tempo, loudness and voice quality of speech?

• A. Prosodic Features
• B. Phonology
• C. Deixis
• D. Phatic Language

Answer: (A)

Prosody refers to the audible patterns that color speech, including how it’s stressed, timed, and varied in pitch and loudness. It also covers tempo and voice quality, which together convey emotion, emphasis, and intent beyond the literal words. Because these features—stress, rhythm, intonation, tempo, loudness, and voice quality—form the expressive layer of spoken language, the best term for describing them is prosodic features (prosody).

Phonology deals with the abstract system of sounds and their rules, not the way those sounds are produced in real-time speech. Deixis concerns context-dependent words like this, that, here, there. Phatic language refers to speech used to maintain social contact rather than to convey information.