Intonation

Question 1

What’s intonation

Answer 1

Intonation “refers to the changing pitch of the voice as we speak.” (Knight, 2012).

Question 2

Is it a segmental or suprasegmental system?

Answer 2

-suprasegmental system- carries over long stretches of speech

Question 3

What’s a tone language

Answer 3

The pitch on which a word is produced can change its meaning, e.g. Cantonese, Thai

Tone /si/ in Cantonese
High silk
Mid to try
Low matter

Question 4

Only compulsory element of an intonation phrase is ?

Answer 4

A nuclear tone

Question 5

What an intonation phrase ?

Answer 5

1) An intonation phrase is a bit like a bar in music. It is a basic unit in intonation.
2) A bar in music is constrained by the number of beats (or counts) that can occur, e.g. the previous example of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ has 4 beats (or counts) in each bar.
3) An intonation phrase is not constrained by the number of syllables it can contain.
4) Intonation phrases must contain a nucleus -optionally, a pre-head, head and tail.

Question 6

Form of nuclear tones

-How many nuclear tones in SSBE ?

Answer 6

7

Question 7

Which 4 are we learning about

Answer 7

Fall
Rise
Fall rise
Rise fall

Question 8

Nuclear tone function- Fall

Answer 8

-Usually regarded as more or less neutral.
-Responding ‘yes’ or ‘no’ with a falling tone to a question indicates there is nothing more to be said.
Indicates ‘finality’
Speaker A: are you going out tonight?
Speaker B: ˎno

Question 9

Nuclear tone function- Rise

Answer 9

-Gives the impression that something else is to follow
-often suggests a question but not always
:
Speaker A: excuse me
Speaker B: ˏ yes

Question 10

Nuclear tone function- Fall Rise

Answer 10

‘limited agreement’
-doubt, hesitation, uncertainty

Speaker A: I understand that intonation is difficult
Speaker B: ˇyes
Speaker B doesn’t entirely agree with Speaker A.

Question 11

Nuclear tone function- Rise Fall

Answer 11

Conveys feelings of surprise, approval or disapproval.
Speaker A: You wouldn’t really miss that lecture, would you?
Speaker B: ˆno

Question 12

Nuclear tone-Level

Answer 12

Conveys a feeling of saying something routine, uninteresting or boring.
Speaker A: I need to go through some routine security questions. Have you had any accidents in the last 12 months?
Speaker B: ˃no
Speaker A: Does your mobile number end in 345?
Speaker B: ˃yes
etc. etc.

Question 13

Nuclear tone-Level

Answer 13

Conveys a feeling of saying something routine, uninteresting or boring.
Speaker A: I need to go through some routine security questions. Have you had any accidents in the last 12 months?
Speaker B: ˃no
Speaker A: Does your mobile number end in 345?
Speaker B: ˃yes
etc. etc.

Question 14

What happens in multisyllabic words

Answer 14

In the case of polysyllabic words, the most strongly stressed syllable receives the tone. It is equivalent to a stress mark.

Question 15

Function of intonation – a definition

Answer 15

It is sometimes useful to approach this type of question by asking what would happen if we didn’t use intonation or if we lost our ability to do so.
“To put it in the broadest possible terms … intonation makes it easier for a listener to understand what a speaker is trying to say.”
Roach (2009)

Question 16

Roach’s 4 ways of isolating different functions of intonation ?

Answer 16

1. Attitudinal function
   - expressing emotions and attitudes
2. Accentual function
   - focusing attention on the most important word in an intonation phrase
3. Grammatical function
   - highlighting the grammatical and syntactic structure of what is being said, e.g. phrase boundaries; questions versus statements
4. Discourse function
   - signalling what is ‘new’ and what is ‘given’ information; conveying to a listener what type of response is required

Question 17

Isolating the different functions of intonation is not always straightforward.

Answer 17

In particular, Roach (2009) makes the following observations:

1. The attitudinal function of intonation is frequently emphasised but there is often overlap between the attitudinal and discourse functions.
2. The accentual, grammatical and discourse functions of intonation are often difficult to treat separately.

Question 18

Attitudinal function of intonation

Answer 18

• Intonation conveys our emotions and attitudes as we speak- adds a special kind of ‘meaning’ to spoken language.
• the same sentence can be said in different ways which may be labelled as angry/ happy/grateful/ bored etc.

Falling tone = finality/ definiteness
Speaker A: Are you going on holiday? Speaker B: \No
Fall rise = uncertainty; doubt; reluctant to agree
Speaker A: I hear you’ve had a good holiday. Speaker B: ˅Yes (yes..but)
Rise fall = approval; disapproval; surprise
Speaker A: Sorry but I’m not going on holiday with you. Speaker B: ˄Oh

Question 19

Attitudinal function of intonation

-problems

Answer 19

Issue with identifying attitude
-The use of 7 nuclear tones is not sufficient to capture the range of things we do to convey our attitudes and emotions.

What else do we do?
◦	Prosody
◦	Paralinguistics
◦	Rate
No purely about nuclear tones

Question 20

Accentual function of intonation

Answer 20

• concerns the placement of the nuclear tone within the intonation phrase.
  It allows us to indicate the ‘focus’ of the information, i.e. what is most important.

A general rule regarding placement of the nuclear tone
The nuclear tone tends to occur on the last lexical word in the intonation phrase …

… but it may be placed earlier in the phrase if there is a more important word.

Examples of the accentual function
The general rule
| she drove the red \car ||
 Exceptions to the rule
 | here’s the \book you asked me to bring ||

Overlap with the grammatical function of intonation as we are highlighting words in a sentence

Question 21

Grammatical function of intonation

Answer 21

This function relates to the way in which the location of the intonation phrase boundary can impact on meaning.

There are two aspects to consider:
I. Placement of the intonation phrase boundary
II. Choice of nuclear tone

Question 22

Example of placement of intonation phrase boundary changing the meaning?

Answer 22

Placement of the intonation phrase boundary

a) | the Conservatives who ^like the proposal | are \pleased || (some conservative)
b) | the Con\servatives | who \like the proposal | are \pleased || (all conservatives)

Question 23

Example of the how choice of nuclear tone can change meaning of the sentence?

Answer 23

Choice of nuclear tone can be said to have grammatical significance
e.g.
-many languages can change a statement into a question by changing from a falling tone to a rising tone- acceptable in some dialects of English -more common in American English
Statement: | the \house is for sale ||
Question: | the /house is for sale || (more common- US English)

Question tags:1| the book was on the \shelf | \wasn’t it ||
2| the book was on the \shelf | /wasn’t it ||
1) falling tone on the question tag suggests certainty
2) rising tone in the second example suggests an element of doubt.

With these examples could reasonable be said to be attitudinal as grammatical. Overlap between the two functions.

Question 24

Discourse function of intonation

Answer 24

Discourse is the study of “the larger contexts in which sentences occur” (Roach, 2009, p.156), e.g. conversational interaction between speakers.
The discourse function of intonation has two aspects:
1. Focussing the listener’s attention on the important parts of what’s being said
2. Regulating conversational behaviour.

Question 25

Focussing the listener’s attention on the important parts of what’s being said

Answer 25

Focussing attention-slight overlap accentual

We’ve already considered ‘focus’ as part of the accentual function of intonation, i.e. place the nuclear tone on the most important word in the intonation phrase to focus the listener’s attention.

The nuclear tone will tend to be place on words with high information content.

Roach (2009) highlights some interesting exceptions:

“Your coat’s on fire.” “The engine’s failed.” “Your uncle’s just died.”
Not fire/failed/died

Another way we focus attention using intonation is called ‘intonational subordination’ and we achieve this by using prosodic characteristics, e.g. lower pitch range; increased speed; narrower pitch range; reduced loudness.

Question 26

Regulating conversational behaviour

Answer 26

Regulating conversational behaviour
Intonation can regulate interaction between two or more speakers
It can identify what the speakers are doing e.g. questioning; approving; advising; casting doubt.
It can indicate whether a response is/ isn’t required.