Intonation in English Scott Thornbury expresses 3 functions of intonation: grammatical, attitudinal, and discoursal. While grammatical and additudinal intonation play an important role in English communication, only discoursal functions are reliably teachable.

Grammatical Function Indicates the difference between grammatical categories such as questions and statements. For example, It is generally accepted that statements fall in pitch. It is generally accepted that non-wh questions rise in pitch.

Problems with Grammatical Functions of Intonation While some general rules of thumb are valid, there is little benefit to spending time on teaching production of grammatical intonation. Levis (1999b) asserts that Intonation on yes/no questions (a large portion of grammatical intonation teaching) “is likely to play little or no role in intelligibility between… varieties of English and should thus be de-emphasized in pedagogy” (cited in Finch, 2005, p. 152). For example, yes/no questions such as “Is this your boat?” could be understood as a question even on a falling pitch when spoken by a native speaker or a learner. Statements do not necessarily fall in pitch and questions do not necessarily rise in pitch. Statements can easily end up a rising pitch (I went to school on scholarship.) and questions can easily end on a falling pitch (Are you really wearing that?)

Attitudinal Function Indicates the speaker’s feeling (emotion and attitude) about the statement. It is associated with rising and falling pitch, and the attitudes associated with these pitches (Finch, 2005, p.51-52). 1. Falling: assertive, stating a fact. 2. Rising: expressing politeness enquiring. 3. Falling-Rising: expressing doubt or uncertainty. 4. Rising-Falling: emphatic, impatient or sarcastic. 5. Level: Neutral or uninterested.

Problems with Attitudinal Functions of Intonation Although they certainly exist, they are nigh unteachable (Jenkins, 2000, 151.) They are impossible to generalize. Even native speakers find it impossible to reliably guess what a change in pitch means without context. An isolated clip of a speaker saying “Oh, it was my mother on the phone” could reasonably be assumed to be distracted, angry, relieved, or a number of other emotions. They are subjective. Each individual speaker expresses attitude differently. While prolonged exposure to English can result in a learner being able to mimic these, the elements speakers use to express attitude are so diverse and complex that teaching them would be practically useless (Coulthard, 1985, p. 98).

Discoursal Function Analyses intonation as part of connected speech rather than isolated sentences. Determines meaning by identifying prominent words and pitch changes. Separates speech into tone units with significant information marked within. //She lost the book//that you lent her//so you might not want to trust her. //I walked up to fourth street//but you weren’t there//and I wondered why. Speakers highlight certain words “as a means of guiding the listener to the most important information” (2010, p. 93). Uses pitch to indicate information that is new or is shared, expected or unexpected. Shared information tends to feature a higher tone: //She lost the book that you lent her// (both speaker and listener are aware of the lent book) and new information tends to feature a falling tone //so you might not want to trust her.

Discoursal: Topic and Prominence “In any utterance, some words are more important than others” (Dalton & Seidlhofer, 1994, p. 54). Content words tend to carry more stress than function words, particularly in slower speech. Certain words are emphasized in a sentence which indicate the most important information. We signal these prominent words in varied ways: “pitch movement, increased loudness, duration, paralinguistic features such as facial expression, and voice quality” (1995, p. 56).

Content Words and Function Words Content words carry information and have a clear meaning. Function words have an abstract meaning and fulfill a grammatical function. We tend to stress the words that carry meaning. *Content words: stressed Articles (a, an, the) Nouns (fish, beast) Auxiliary verbs (am, is, can) Verbs (squash, forget) Short prepositions (to, at, in) Adjectives (delicious, monstrous) Conjunctions (and, or, that) Adverbs (cheerfully, very) Relative pronouns (who, what) Demonstratives (this, those) Personal Pronouns and possessive adjectives Question words (How? When?) (I, you, she) Negatives (not, don’t) Function words: Unstressed I forgot about to get the fish. It would have been very delicious, but I forgot. Sue me. You monstrous beast! I won’t forgive this! This is the last time! Don’t take that tone with **me! *Table (excluding examples from Lane, 2010) **Personal pronoun stressed for emphasis

Discoursal: Introducing and Ending Topics, Taking Turns Pitch indicates when a speaker intends to continue speaking (high pitch) or is finished and ready to hear a response (low pitch). This is paired with other factors such as the kinesics of eye contact and body language. (Dalton & Seidlhofer, 1994). I promised I’d give you the test results but I never promised when. (raised pitch) I just need more time. (lowered pitch) (hands opened to invite a response) You need more time? When you were the one who came to me for help? You’d better check yourself before you wreck yourself, Bryan. (challenging eye contact indicates a confrontation) Pitch can be used as an indication between tone units. //I promised I’d give you the test results//but I never promised when.

Not perfect, but teachable Even the teaching of discoursal functions of intonation has its problems. For example, the transmission of old and new information may not be obvious or obviously expressed. I saw that girl you’re dating (no raised pitch to indicate shared information) but she didn’t look happy to see me. (raised pitch in spite of an invitation to respond) Also, tone is difficult to hear even for native speakers to hear. This is demonstrated by countless breakdowns in communication demonstrated by frustrated cries of “is it my turn to talk?!” Nevertheless, it remains the only form of intonation worthy of extensive classroom focus.

Discoursal Function: How it can be taught It is possible to teach students the difference between content (often more prominent) and function words (often less prominent) which will enable them to determine important words in a sentence. A chart such as the one found earlier in this presentation would be useful. A student can learn to emphasize (done by rising pitch and elongating the vowel sound) the most important words in a sentence. A teacher can call attention to this by asking clarifying questions during class once a method for doing so has been established. I went to school and I saw my friends. Where do you go? Whom did you see? Students can study nuclear contrastive stress in order to reduce problems with intelligibility. “This is probably because nuclear placement operates at a more conscious level than the other aspects of the intonation system.” (Finch, 2005, p. 153.) Highlight where nuclear contrastive stress occurs by emphasizing that the stressed syllable has extra vowel length. “I was trying to find your mother’s dress, not buy a new one.”

Bibliography Coulthard, M. (1977/1985 An Introduction to Discourse Analysis. London: Longman.  Dalton, C., and Seidlhofer, B. (1994) Pronunciation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.  Finch, G. (2005) Key Concepts in Language and Linguistics (2nd edn).Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.   Jenkins, Jennifer. (2000). The Phonology of English as an International Language. Oxford: Oxford Applied Linguistics. Lane, Linda. (2010). Pronunciation: A Practical Approach. White Plains, NY: Pearson Education, Inc. Thornbury, Scott. (2006). An A-Z of ELT. Oxford: Macmillan Publishers, Ltd.