Intonation and Communication Martha C. Pennington Martha C. Pennington Professor of Writing and Linguistics

The Unreality of Grammars Traditional grammars, in relying on a written language norm filtered through an ancient language [Latin] and in privileging the sentence as the essential unit of analysis, have described language in terms of an abstract ideal rather than as a central aspect of human behavior. Pennington, M. C. (2002). Grammar and communication: New directions in theory and practice. In Eli Hinkel and Sandra Fotos (eds.), New Perspectives on Grammar Teaching in Second Language Classrooms. Mahwah, New Jersey and London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, p. 96.

Communication is a process of: Communication is a process of: (i) A speaker signaling intentions to an addressee, and then an addressee, and then (ii) The addressee making inferences about what the speaker meant by about what the speaker meant by the signal. the signal. Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (1995). Relevance: Communication and Cognition. 2nd edition. Oxford: Blackwell.

Means of Communicating Other Than Language  Gestures (e.g. pointing, waving, shrugged shoulders)  Facial expressions (e.g. smiling, frowning, quizzical look) (e.g. smiling, frowning, quizzical look)  Eye contact (brief or sustained, and lack thereof)  Physical distance (from minimal separation to far apart)

AND…  Bodily orientation (e.g. directly facing or leaning towards one or another participant)  Type and amount of touching (e.g. of a person’s arm while speaking)  Other forms of physical contact (e.g. intimate contact such as kissing), which may preclude or take precedence over linguistic expression

3 Methods of Signaling Describing-as We describe something as a fish when we present the word fish. Indicating We indicate an individual fish when we point at it. Demonstrating We demonstrate the size of a fish when we hold our hands so far apart. Clark, Herbert H. (1996). Using Language. Clark, Herbert H. (1996). Using Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 391.

Meaning by Contrast Instead of thinking of meaning as a property which is inherently attached to the word, we can focus upon the way people use words— and, indeed, other linguistic items—to create oppositions, as in “friend not relative”, “friend not merely acquaintance”, which are of relevance to whatever communicative purpose is presently being pursued. Brazil, David (1995). A Grammar of Speech. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 35.

An Everyday Example An Everyday Example PATANDMARTY They live together and are going about their normal Saturday routine.

Those 3 Little Words I got it!

Some Meanings of Get SUBJECT AS RECIPIENT  I got a letter. (‘receive’)  I got the flu. (‘catch’)  I got sick. (‘became’)  I got stung by a bee. (‘be’) SUBJECT AS ACTOR  I got my child from the daycare center. (‘fetch’)  I got my baby some new blankets. (‘obtain’)  I got dinner ready. (‘caused to happen’)

High Key Intonation It narrows down the context of assumptions to one contrasting with all other possibilities. Brazil, David (1997). The Communicative Value of Intonation in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Intonation as a Signaling System Informing (Informational) Function Signaling informativeness: Salience/non-salience (high pitch vs. non-high pitch) Structuring (Syntactic) Function Signaling boundaries: Completion/non-completion (pitch fall vs. absence of fall) Interactional (Participatory) Function Signaling participation: Hearer involvement/non- involvement (pitch rise vs. non-rise)

Functions of Intonation  Chunking and structuring information  Managing speech production and interaction  Revealing the ongoing state of knowledge construction and control of discourse

Speakers construct their utterances in relation to:  their own purposes and intentions;  their knowledge of communicative context, including what the hearer can be presumed to know; and can be presumed to know; and  their knowledge of contextual effects.

The communication is realized by means of: (i) the specific speaker’s selection of (ii) tonal pattern together with (iii) specific words and (iv) their arrangement as exactly the right language, no less and no more, given (v) the specific context and (vi) intended audience, to trigger the intended interpretation.

Conclusions about Language  Language is necessarily social and must be referenced to the joint actions of at least two people.  Meaning does not inhere in a sentence but is created in the interaction between speaker and hearer.

Conclusions about Intonation  The tonal properties of an utterance are essential to the precise coding of a message to be both efficient and interpretable by a particular audience on a particular occasion.  The workings of intonation make a very good case that a grammar abstracted from real communicative events and contexts is not merely abstract but unreal and unworkable.