Intonation
Intonation refers to the variation in pitch, stress, and rhythm in spoken language. It plays a crucial role in conveying meaning, attitude, and emotion in communication. Different languages and dialects have distinct intonation patterns, which can impact how messages are interpreted and understood.
8 Key excerpts on "Intonation"
eBook - ePub- Peter Hawkins(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...7 Intonation Intonation is the name given to the fluctuations of pitch in spoken utterances. It normally refers to the pitch patterns of a larger grammatical unit such as a phrase, clause, or sentence, though of course a sentence may consist of only a single word, in which case Intonation can apply to it. Intonation and stress are related phenomena (see above, p. 178) and, indeed, some writers use the term ‘sentence stress’ for what we shall call Intonation. In this chapter our general aims will be: first, to present a concise, simple, yet adequate method for transcribing Intonation, i.e. a suitable notation; second, to relate the pitch patterns to typical sentence functions such as statement, question, etc.; and third, to explore the role of Intonation in grammatical structure, looking particularly at examples in which Intonation resolves grammatical ambiguity. Basic features Intonation has three basic properties: 1 It is a language universal. There are no languages which are spoken as a monotone, i.e. without change of pitch. In ‘tone’ languages, pitch change can be used to make a difference between one lexical word and another, in the same way that /p/ and /b/ differentiate pit and bit: in Chinese, which is a good example of a tone language, lán (high rising tone) means ‘blue’, but lăn (fall-rise tone) means ‘lazy’. Non-tonal languages, like English and most other European languages, do not make such lexical distinctions. In the tone languages, however, when the individual lexical items are combined into phrases and sentences, there still emerges an overall pitch ‘contour’ which is not simply the sum of the individual (lexical) tones, but carries the same functions as Intonation in other (non-tonal) languages. So tone languages have Intonation, but in addition the tones can be used to make lexical distinctions. 2 Intonation is functional, i.e...
eBook - ePubQuestions About Language
What Everyone Should Know About Language in the 21st Century
- Laurie Bauer, Andreea S. Calude, Laurie Bauer, Andreea S. Calude(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...It has a wide range of functions. For example, Intonation patterns can be used to show whether a speaker has finished their turn or plans to carry on speaking, to mark the difference between a statement and a question, to indicate which parts of an utterance introduce new or contrasting information, or to express the speaker’s mood or emotions. Given that utterances can consist of single words, Intonation patterns can, like tone, be realized over single words. Importantly, however, the different patterns of Intonation convey differences in the meanings or structures of the whole utterance, rather than serving to distinguish one word from another. Tone, pitch accents and Intonation clearly use the same mechanism, that is, the modulation of voice pitch. For this reason, it is sometimes assumed that because tone languages already employ this mechanism for lexical or grammatical distinctions, they cannot also use it for the kinds of Intonational patterns found in other languages, and therefore that Intonation cannot be universal. This is, however, not the case. Although the situation can be rather complicated (for instance, the tones of adjacent words can influence one another), Intonation in tone languages can be thought of as providing bands of utterance-level pitch movements, within which more local pitch fluctuations realize lexical or grammatical tone distinctions. Changes in the shapes of the overall pitch bands can reflect similar distinctions to those made by pitch movements in non-tone languages...
eBook - ePub- John A. Goldsmith, Jason Riggle, Alan C. L. Yu, John A. Goldsmith, Jason Riggle, Alan C. L. Yu(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
...Chapter 15 Intonation MARY E. BECKMAN AND JENNIFER J. VENDITTI 1 The Scope of This Chapter As a technical term in phonological descriptions of spoken languages, Intonation refers to patterned variation in voiced source pitch that serves to contrast and to organize words and larger utterances. In this general statement of its meaning, it is synonymous with the technical term tone. In typical usage, however, the two terms are differentiated by applying them to different aspects of these linguistic uses of pitch, a differentiation that is reflected in this edition of the Handbook of Phonological Theory by the fact of there being a separate chapter on tone (Hyman, this volume). In order to delimit the scope of the present chapter, 1 therefore, we begin by listing the aspects of the linguistic use of pitch that are typically invoked in differentiating Intonation from tone. The differentiation is exemplified by the two parts of the sixth definition for the entry for “tone” in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary (eleventh edition): “(in some languages, such as Chinese) a particular pitch pattern on a syllable used to make semantic distinctions” and “(in some languages, such as English) Intonation on a word or phrase used to add functional meaning.” This sixth definition is tagged as the meanings for a technical term in phonetics, and its second part subsumes the term “Intonation,” which is defined in its own entry as “the rise and fall of the voice in speaking.” In the COED entry, then, the primary sense of tone as a technical term in describing sound patterns refers to a localized melodic event (a note or glissando) occurring over the span of a syllable, whereas tone qua Intonation refers to a pattern of glissandi distributed over a longer span...
eBook - ePub- Bruce Hayes(Author)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
...It is also possible for tone and stress to coexist: Bantu languages often have a complex tone system coexisting with a simple penultimate stress pattern. 15.1.2 Intonation languages In an Intonation language, pitch does not distinguish words. Instead, there are phrasal-level pitch patterns which convey abstract meanings of their own, usually related to the information structure of the utterance. English and most other European languages are Intonation languages. It is typical for an Intonation language to have stress. The pitch tracks in figure 15.2 show the English word animal [ˈænəməl] as pronounced by the author using statement, then question Intonation. The first and last syllables are shown linked to phonological tones, which will be explained in the discussion to follow. 15.1.3 Pitch accent languages Pitch accent languages are something of an intermediate case. Pitch is phonemic (distinguishes words), and so there are minimal or near-minimal pairs for pitch. Pitch accent languages differ from pure tone languages in that words can only have one prominent syllable. This syllable serves as the anchor point for a pitch change, and pitch in the remainder of the word is predictable, or determined Intonationally. The limitation to one prominent syllable is reminiscent of the principle of culminativity in stress (§14.2.1.1). Figure 15.2 English Intonation Tokyo Japanese is a well-studied pitch accent language. Here, one particular syllable in a word can bear a high tone. The choice of which syllable (if any) bears high tone is unpredictable, and high tones must therefore appear in lexical entries. The pitch on all remaining syllables is predictable and can be derived by tonal insertion rules (see Further reading)...
eBook - ePub- José Ignacio Hualde, Antxon Olarrea, Erin O'Rourke, José Ignacio Hualde, Antxon Olarrea, Erin O'Rourke(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
...9 Intonation in Spanish ERIN O’ROURKE 1 Introduction Intonation is a suprasegmental characteristic of speech that pertains to features of sound above the level of vowels and consonants. The changes in prosody or melodic contour are assigned a certain grammatical and/or pragmatic meaning according to the context in which it is used, such as an emphatic statement or a question expressing surprise. Languages may vary according what contours are used in each instance. In Spanish, the goal of Intonation studies has been to determine which contours and Intonation features are common across Spanish dialects and which ones serve to distinguish these dialects (e.g., in broad terms, Peninsular vs. Latin American, or by region, Caribbean Spanish vs. Andean Spanish). In addition, the ways in which Spanish Intonation may have developed and continues to develop in these different dialects has been of interest, in particular in terms of language contact and language acquisition. The goal of this chapter, then, is to first describe Intonation itself in terms of its properties of sound, and to introduce how this may be used to express differences in meaning. Then, in Section 2, the Intonation features that have been examined for Spanish are summarized, including some of the main findings. In Section 3, the ways is which Spanish dialects have been found to differ will be described. Next, in Section 4, Spanish in contact with other languages and its affect on Intonation is addressed. Finally, language acquisition and the development of Spanish Intonation are discussed in Section 5. 1.1 Intonation: sound and meaning Prior to describing Spanish Intonation in particular, a brief description of Intonation in terms of its physical properties and how it is measured may be useful. From an acoustic perspective, as speech is modulated, a sound wave is produced that is perceived as pitch, which may be higher or lower at different points in an utterance...
eBook - ePub- Malcolm Coulthard(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...2 The significance of Intonation in discourse Malcolm Coulthard INTRODUCTION Paralinguistic phenomena in general and Intonation in particular are areas of language patterning which have received comparatively little attention from linguists who, for differing reasons, have chosen to concentrate on segmental phonology, morphology, syntax and lexis. Although detailed descriptions of Intonation do exist and there is a fair measure of agreement about the phonetic and phonological facts, at least of British English, little work has been done on the interactive significance of Intonation. Crystal (1969) contents himself with a very detailed description of all the phonological options without attempting to assign significance to them. Halliday (1967) asserts that ‘all English Intonation contrasts are grammatical’ and thus restricts their significance to the language system, while Crystal (1975) argues that the ‘vast majority of tones in connected speech carry no meaning’ although he does concede that a few do carry attitudinal options like ‘absence of emotional involvement’. Only O’Connor and Arnold set out to describe all Intonation choices as interactively meaningful, asserting that a major function of Intonation is to express ‘the speaker’s attitude to the situation in which he is placed’ (1973:2). Unfortunately, until there is some set of agreed and mutually exclusive attitudinal labels to match against the Intonation choices, an attitudinal description must be impossible; the experiment reported in Crystal (1969:297ff) shows the difficulties native speakers have in matching attitudinal labels with Intonation contours, while O’Connor and Arnold’s own examples undermine their claim to have managed to do so. For example, they describe the significance of the rise—fall in relation to a number of exemplificatory sentences...
eBook - ePubDescribing Spoken English
An Introduction
- Charles W. Kreidler(Author)
- 2002(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Chapter 1 1 Intonation 11.1 Paralanguage 11.2 Intonations of the simple tone unit 11.3 Low and high onsets 11.4 Compound tunes LOOKING AHEAD Intonation is part of the language system. When anyone speaks, there are features of the voice that we call paralanguage and which are not truly part of language. Like gestures and other visual phenomena, paralanguage leads us to form some opinion of the speaker and hence of his/her message, but these elements are not systematic. (See Section 11.1.) The elements of Intonation are changes in the frequency of vibration of the vocal cords, centering on the accented syllable. We recognize falling and rising tunes of different lengths and combinations of such rises and falls. In general, falling tunes suggest finality; they are used when the speaker asserts something or, in a question, is confident of an answer. Rising tunes are more oriented toward the addressee and suggest openness (Section 11.2). The onset of a tone unit may be high or low; a high onset creates an extra center of attention. (See Section 11.3.) When an utterance consists of two or more tone units, we can distinguish a nuclear tone unit, preceded by an onset tone unit and/or followed by a coda tone unit. Either of these may have a rise or a fall, with different effects for the whole utterance. (See Section 11.4.) 11.1 Paralanguage The meanings which most of us think about, most of the time, are the meanings expressed in language. But there are more subtle meanings that are communicated in a speech situation...
eBook - ePubA Transdisciplinary Approach to International Teaching Assistants
Perspectives from Applied Linguistics
- Stephen Daniel Looney, Shereen Bhalla(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Multilingual Matters(Publisher)
...First, Brazil describes Intonational choices as designed to help negotiate a state of convergence with the listener. In other words, the speaker designs their Intonation choices to link the ongoing discourse message to a context that the specific listener(s) can make sense of. Critically, this notion of convergence includes both informational and social confluence between participants. Thus, successful interaction is understood to be the maintenance of comfortable interactional involvement between interlocutors in both informational and relational respects. Second, Brazil developed the discourse Intonation model with classroom discourse specifically in mind (see for example, Brazil et al., 1980). Much of the initial work that was undertaken by him and his colleagues focused on classrooms in the UK. However, further research has shown that it has proven value in the analysis of nonnative speech in ESL/EFL contexts including studies of English language learners from Germany (Koester, 1990), Italy (Pirt, 1990), and Korea, Greece and Indonesia (Hewings, 1995). The following section briefly introduces the formal Intonational choices that comprise the model before focusing on the ITA research that has derived from it. The Discourse Intonation Model The discourse Intonation model comprises four systems under the executive control of the speaker: (1) division of the speech stream into tone units; (2) choice of prominent syllables/words within speech units; (3) choice of pitch movement on the tonic syllable; and (4) choice of pitch height on prominent syllables. All transcription conventions are given in the appendix. Tone units are typically separated by pauses and comprise one idea or piece of information such as a clause or other language ‘chunk’ that makes semantic sense. Prominence, or utterance level stress, falls on the information-bearing syllables in the unit...
