Intonation Flashcards
What’s intonation
Intonation “refers to the changing pitch of the voice as we speak.” (Knight, 2012).
Is it a segmental or suprasegmental system?
-suprasegmental system- carries over long stretches of speech
What’s a tone language
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
Only compulsory element of an intonation phrase is ?
A nuclear tone
What an intonation phrase ?
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.
Form of nuclear tones
-How many nuclear tones in SSBE ?
7
Which 4 are we learning about
Fall
Rise
Fall rise
Rise fall
Nuclear tone function- Fall
-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
Nuclear tone function- Rise
-Gives the impression that something else is to follow
-often suggests a question but not always
:
Speaker A: excuse me
Speaker B: ˏ yes
Nuclear tone function- Fall Rise
‘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.
Nuclear tone function- Rise Fall
Conveys feelings of surprise, approval or disapproval.
Speaker A: You wouldn’t really miss that lecture, would you?
Speaker B: ˆno
Nuclear tone-Level
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.
Nuclear tone-Level
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.
What happens in multisyllabic words
In the case of polysyllabic words, the most strongly stressed syllable receives the tone. It is equivalent to a stress mark.
Function of intonation – a definition
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)
Roach’s 4 ways of isolating different functions of intonation ?
- Attitudinal function
- expressing emotions and attitudes - Accentual function
- focusing attention on the most important word in an intonation phrase - Grammatical function
- highlighting the grammatical and syntactic structure of what is being said, e.g. phrase boundaries; questions versus statements - Discourse function
- signalling what is ‘new’ and what is ‘given’ information; conveying to a listener what type of response is required
Isolating the different functions of intonation is not always straightforward.
In particular, Roach (2009) makes the following observations:
- The attitudinal function of intonation is frequently emphasised but there is often overlap between the attitudinal and discourse functions.
- The accentual, grammatical and discourse functions of intonation are often difficult to treat separately.
Attitudinal function of intonation
- 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
Attitudinal function of intonation
-problems
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
Accentual function of intonation
- 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
Grammatical function of intonation
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
Example of placement of intonation phrase boundary changing the meaning?
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)
Example of the how choice of nuclear tone can change meaning of the sentence?
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.
Discourse function of intonation
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.
