Lakhasly

This chapter provides an introduction to English intonation.Articulatorily, pitch is associated with the vibration frequency of the vocal folds that is measured instrumentally and known as the fundamental frequency or FO. The pitch of voice and the different notes of voice that combine are mandatory to make tones.Mastering intonation, which is by default mastering English stress and rhythm, is more important for sounding more native-like than mastering the pronunciation of segmentals or vowels and consonants.If you focus on developing intonational and rhythmic habits, the degree of your accent intelligibility and acceptance will be significantly higher.Tones are instrumental for communicating our messages and intentions and making our speech more expressive and more energetic.Intonation is the punctuation of our speech as it helps listeners to navigate where we stop, where we ask for information, etc.Intonation helps words to communicate massages and emotions such as anger, disgust, fear, sadness, happiness, etc.Pitch also indicates several things such as social class, geographical origin, personality type and overall experience in life.It also handles the main functions of intonation.Generally speaking, intonation is related to rhythm.You can feel that so powerfully if you replace speaking by humming.Pitch is the main carrier of intonation.The rise and fall of our voice indicates to the listener the meaning we intend.It means the rise and fall of voice or the melody of speech.When we speak, our voice goes up and down which is perceptually recognized as high and low pitch.In some languages, especially tone languages, the meaning of a word changes according to the tone used.An angry voice usually has a high pitch while a polite voice is usually low in pitch.

This chapter provides an introduction to English intonation. It also handles the main functions of intonation.

Generally speaking, intonation is related to rhythm. It means the rise and fall of voice or the melody of speech. When we speak, our voice goes up and down which is perceptually recognized as high and low pitch. You can feel that so powerfully if you replace speaking by humming. Articulatorily, pitch is associated with the vibration frequency of the vocal folds that is measured instrumentally and known as the fundamental frequency or FO. The pitch of voice and the different notes of voice that combine are mandatory to make tones. Tones are instrumental for communicating our messages and intentions and making our speech more expressive and more energetic. Intonation is the punctuation of our speech as it helps listeners to navigate where we stop, where we ask for information, etc. Intonation helps words to communicate massages and emotions such as anger, disgust, fear, sadness, happiness, etc.

Mastering intonation, which is by default mastering English stress and rhythm, is more important for sounding more native-like than mastering the pronunciation of
segmentals or vowels and consonants. If you focus on developing intonational and rhythmic habits, the degree of your accent intelligibility and acceptance will be significantly higher. Pitch is the main carrier of intonation. The rise and fall of our voice indicates to the listener the meaning we intend. An angry voice usually has a high pitch while a polite voice is usually low in pitch. Pitch also indicates several things such as social class, geographical origin, personality type and overall experience in life.

In some languages, especially tone languages, the meaning of a word changes according to the tone used. In Chinese, O'Connor (1981) points out, "ma" said with a level tone that is with no pitch change means mother and with a rising tone means horse. Many African languages pattern the same. English intonation is not operating on word level, but on word group or utterance level. The meaning of an utterance changes according to the tone used.

Three tone types are to be identified in most languages: high tone, low tone and level tone. In order to schematically illustrate them, four parallel horizontal lines are usually used and arranged in an ascending order as 1, 2, 3, 4.
Level 4 is highest level of voice, and we use it for expressing emphasis and extreme anger, excitement, etc. 4

Level 3 marks stressed words in our speech. 3

Level 2 is used when we begin our speech. 2

Level 1 marks the end of our speech 1 before pausing.

Fig. 1: Pitch range

1 represents the most lowness of voice pitch, 2 the second

lowest pitch while, 3 and 4 represent the second highest and the highest pitch respectively. The outer extreme level 4 is rarely reached and if this happens, it indicates special emotions. Most of our normal speaking lies within the range of the other levels. For the sake of visual and schematic convenience, the two medial lines are abolished in the rest of this discussion.

For instance, yes can be pronounced with three possibilities for intonation, if it is one-word utterance

Yes

fall

Rise

level

It is acknowledged that each speaker possesses unique physical properties of voice and therefore a unique range of pitch levels/movements.

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Functions of Intonation As O'Conner and Arnold (1973) note, English native listeners show much tolerance of deviated foreign pronunciation, but they are highly offended when inappropriate intonation is used. This is because intonation
shows intention. For example, Thank you when said casually in formal situations could indicate that the speaker is not grateful.

Intonation is used in all languages but takes different forms cross-linguistically. A pitch pattern or tone may indicate two different messages in two languages or dialects and could cause communication problems. This is why learning intonation of a foreign language is important.

Before going any further, the functions of intonation should be elucidated so as to make it justifiable for the learner why he has to know tone types, and why they are important for successful communication. First of all, intonation is a meaning-carrier means, through which we can identify the grammatical form of the utterance (a statement, a question, an order, an exclamation, a vocative, etc) e.g.

You are home (statement).

You are home? (question).

You are home (doubt).

You are home (confirmation)
Another common example of the relationship between intonation and grammar is the tag questions. If said with our voice rising on the tag part, they sound genuine, information- seeking questions. If said with the voice falling, they sound unreal questions and give the impression that the speakers seek people to confirm or back up what they say.

Consider the following couple of sentences.

The professor/ who gave the lecture/ is genius.

The professor who gave the lecture/ is genius.

Secondly, intonation expresses the speaker's emotions (anger, surprise, interest, etc), relationship to the listener (equal, superior, inferior, polite, etc.) and attitude to message (joking, serious, interested, etc.). It is important, in this regard, to say that the use of intonation to express emotions depends on the learner's personality. Outgoing or sociable learners would find it very easy to use more melodies or intonation in their speech than the shy, quiet learners who would find it difficult to use dynamic or wavering intonation to express their emotions.

Thirdly, intonation helps the speaker to place the tonic stress on the most important word by exerting greater effort while pronouncing that tonic syllable. Equally,
intonation helps the hearer to assign the tonic syllable which is important for the speaker and the message.

Fourthly, intonation helps both the speaker and the listener in assigning and identifying the information structure of the utterance: the given-new information structure. The given (previously mentioned/known) information has less emphasis in accentuation than new information. Generally, old or given information are said with rising intonation, whereas new information have falling intonation.

A: There isn't bread in the fridge,

B: Why didn't you tell me there is no/bread before?

Fifthly, intonation has an indexical function. Each group, social class or even nation has, to some extent, some unique, idiosyncratic tones or intonation patterns that act as an in-group/identity marker. Britain & Newman (1992, cited in Crystal 1997: 249) report that the high rise intonation (typically used for genuine/ information-seeking questions) is widely used for statements in Irish, Welsh, Australian and New Zealand Englishes. It is also widely used by women, teenagers, working-class people and ethnic minorities. The indexical function of intonation can be manifested in the unique use of tones to mark a discourse type (e.g. sport
commentary), occupation (e.g. army personnel, lawyers, and preachers), etc.

The six function of intonation is textual in nature. Intonation helps speakers to organize and chunk their spoken texts into meaningful sections. People cannot go on speaking without pauses with tones; listeners would find it impossible to get the messages or locate the boundaries of each informational unit. Speech would turn incomprehensible and communication would break down.

Seventhly, intonation also has a psychological function. It helps listeners perceive the message in accordance with some mental models of tones and their functions. Listeners possess an intonation schema that helps them decode the audible text