What is intonation?
It’s the pattern of pitch variation
Intonation is about how we say things, rather than what we say. Without
intonation, it's impossible to understand the expressions and thoughts that go
with words. An utterance can be given a variety of different meanings
according to the intonation patterns given by the speaker.
Listen to somebody speaking without paying attention to the words: the 'melody'
you hear is the intonation. It has the following features:
·
It's divided into phrases, also known as 'tone-units'.(A
simple complete pitch pattern) They help us isolate pitch patterns by defining
where one pattern ends and the next begins.
·
The pitch moves up and down, within a 'pitch
range'. Everybody has their own pitch range. Languages, too, differ in
pitch range. English has particularly wide pitch range.
·
In each tone unit, the pitch movement (a rise or
fall in tone, or a combination of the two) takes place on the most important
syllable known as the 'tonic-syllable'. The tonic-syllable is
usually a high-content word, near the end of the unit. (It carries the main
pitch change and it also carries prominence)
·
These patterns of pitch variation are essential to
a phrase's meaning. Changing the intonation can
completely change the meaning.
Example:
o
Say: 'It's raining'.
o
Now say it again using the same words, but giving
it different meaning. You could say it to mean 'What a surprise!', or 'How
annoying!',or 'That's great!'. There are many
possibilities.
Intonation and grammar
Where patterns associating intonation and grammar are predictable, I highlight
these to my students. I see these as starting-points, rather than rules.
Some examples are:
·
Declarative statements: falling intonation
- Wh-word questions: falling intonation
- Yes/No
questions: rising
- Question-Tags: 'chat' - falling; 'check'
( a real question) – rising
- Imperative: falling intonation
- Lists:
rising, rising, rising, falling
Intonation and attitude
It's important that students are aware of the strong link between intonation
and attitude, even if it's difficult to provide rules here.
·
The first thing is for learners to recognise the
effect of intonation changes. I say the word 'bananas' - firstly with an 'interested'
intonation (varied tone); then 'uninterested' (flat). Students identify
the two and describe the difference. We then brainstorm attitudes, such as
'enthusiastic', 'bored', 'surprised', 'relieved'. I say 'bananas' for these.
Students then do the same in pairs, guessing each other's attitude.
·
This can be developed by asking students to 'greet'
everybody with a particular attitude. At the end, the class identify each
person's attitude. For younger learners, I use 'Mr Men' characters (Miss Happy,
Mr Grumpy, Miss Frightened, etc.) Each student is allocated a character and, as
above, they greet the class with that character's voice.
Intonation and discourse
Learners' also need
awareness of intonation in longer stretches of language. Intonation can be used
as a way of organizing and relating together meanings throughout the discourse. Here, we can give
our learners clearer guidelines: 'new' information = fall tone; 'shared'
knowledge = 'fall-rise'.
A simple shopping dialogue demonstrates
this:
SK: Can I help you?
C: I'd like a chocolate (fall) ice-cream.
SK: One chocolate (fall-rise) ice-cream. Anything else?
C: One strawberry (fall) ice-cream.
SK: One chocolate (fall), one strawberry (fall). Anything else?
C: Yes. One chocolate (fall), one strawberry (fall), and one vanilla
(fall-rise).
Higher level students can
identify the 'new' / 'shared' information, and then
practise reading accordingly.
Pitch direction and range
Differences in the extent
and direction of pitch change are related to attitudes.
Pitch range:
-Two friends
who haven’t seen each other in six months, bump into each other at a party. They
say Hi!
When they say
“Hi” the pitch range is going to be wide, that denotes high involvement,
typically excitement or surprise
In contrast:
-Two friends
A and B haven’t seen each other in a long time During this time B has heard
that A has been saying unpleasant things about him/her.
When B says Hi to A, the pitch range is going
to be narrow, which suggests distance, boredom, even hostility.
By extension,
politeness and rudeness are thought to be linked to wide and narrow pitch
ranges respectively.
Pitch Direction: (Rising,
Falling, fall-rise)
The
conventional view on the relation between intonation and sentence structures
claims that :
-Statements
and Wh- questions have falling tones
-yes-no
questions have rising tones.
However, different
tone contours are equally plausible.
Some of the
most reliable rules are the following
- In Question Tags: A rise
for genuine questions and a fall when the question is only to confirm what the
speaker already knows.
- In discourse, for example, in
a conversation between two people (see below)
They use:
For things
that are common ground between them, when they are reminding each other of
things they both know, they use an “open
ended” referring tone (fall.rise)
When they are
introducing a new idea or enlarging the common ground by either adding or
soliciting more information they use a proclaiming tone, which is a fall tone
Did you get everything for the office?
Here are the envelopes and the stamps (Referring tone). But there wasn't any paper( proclaiming tone)
Who's cming to the dinner party?
As you know, we´ve invited the Whites and the Robsons (Referring tone) But I also invited the Jenkins. (Proclaiming)
From Intonation in Context by B. Bradford)
About Language, Scott
Thrornbury, Cambridge University Press, 1997
Sound Foundations,
Adrian Underhill, Macmillam 1994
