In recent years, speech prosody research in Brazil has grown significantly, mainly due to a series of events organized through the support of the Brazilian government. The two most important of these events are the biennial Brazilian Colloquium on Speech Prosody and School of Prosody, both of which attract a number of prominent Brazilian and international researchers.
Due to the success of the 1st Brazilian Colloquium on Speech Prosody, the Luso-Brazilian Association of Speech Sciences (LBASS) was created in 2007 to support the organization of the Speech Prosody 2008 Conference, which was held in Campinas in May of that year. This international conference, organized by Dr Plínio Barbosa, Dr César Reis, and Dr Sandra Madureira, followed the success of the previous avenues of study, and brought together prosodic researchers from all over the world.
The primary motivation for this book is the dearth of textbooks dealing directly with speech prosody methodology and data. As such, this volume offers a selection of the most attended prosody courses provided during the II School of Prosody at the Federal University of Espirito Santo in 2012. Consequently, this enterprise will not only contribute to prosody education in Brazil, but will also have a significant impact on prosody education in other countries.
