Intonation is change of spoken pitch ( rising or
falling ) that is used for a range of functions such as:
- · indicating the attitudes and emotions of the speaker,
- · signalling the difference between statement and question
- · signalling the difference between different types of question,
- · focussing attention on important elements of the spoken message
- · helping to regulate conversational interaction.
Attitudinal function
(for expressing emotions and attitudes)
example: a fall from a high pitch on
the 'mor' syllable of "good morning" suggests more excitement than a
fall from a low pitch
Grammatical function
(to identify grammatical structure)
example: it is claimed that in English
a falling pitch movement is associated with statements, but a rising pitch
turns a statement into a yes–no question, as in He's going ↗home?. This use of
intonation is more typical of American English than of British.
Focusing (to show
what information in the utterance is new and what is already known)
example: in English I saw a ↘man in the garden answers "Whom did you see?"
or "What happened?", while I ↘saw a man in the garden answers "Did you hear a man in the garden?"
Discourse function
(to show how clauses and sentences go together in spoken discourse)
example: subordinate clauses often have
lower pitch, faster tempo and narrower pitch range than their main clause,[6] as in the case of the material in
brackets in "The Red Planet [as it's known] is fourth from the sun"
Psychological
function (to organize speech into units that are easy to perceive, memorize and
perform)
example: the utterance "You can
have it in red blue green yellow or ↘black" is more
difficult to understand and remember than the same utterance divided into tone
units as in "You can have it in ↗red | ↗blue | ↗green | ↗yellow | or ↘black"
Indexical function
(to act as a marker of personal or social identity)
example: group membership can be
indicated by the use of intonation patterns adopted specifically by that group,
such as street vendors or preachers. The so-called high rising terminal,
where a statement ends with a high rising pitch movement, is said to be typical
of younger speakers of English, and possibly to be more widely found among
young female speakers.
