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Transcription: Intonation

The document discusses intonation in language, focusing on its role in English. It defines intonation as the melody of speech determined by variations in pitch. The main components of English intonation are identified as tone, rhythm, tempo, stress. Common intonation patterns in English include rising, falling, fall-rise and rise-fall. Intonation serves attitudinal, grammatical, focusing, discourse, psychological and indexical functions in organizing and conveying meaning in utterances. Transcription conventions for intonation using the International Phonetic Alphabet are also outlined.

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30 views

Transcription: Intonation

The document discusses intonation in language, focusing on its role in English. It defines intonation as the melody of speech determined by variations in pitch. The main components of English intonation are identified as tone, rhythm, tempo, stress. Common intonation patterns in English include rising, falling, fall-rise and rise-fall. Intonation serves attitudinal, grammatical, focusing, discourse, psychological and indexical functions in organizing and conveying meaning in utterances. Transcription conventions for intonation using the International Phonetic Alphabet are also outlined.

Uploaded by

Volkovinszki Mihai
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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Intonation

Intonation- respresents a part of subsegmental phonology. Like in any language


intonation is language universal. Like in every language intonation varies from word to
word, so in this case intonation varies from language to language. The main focus will
be on the role of intonation in the language and its contribution in the comunicative role
of the English language.

The main components of the intonation in the English language is the tone (the
melody of the voice), rhythm, tempo, the tone of the voice, phrase and the strsss of the
intonation.
All of our discourse is made from how we use our pronunciation depending on the
syllables.

Transcription
Most transcription conventions have been devised for describing one particular accent
or language, and the specific conventions therefore need to be explained in the context
of what is being described. However, for general purposes the International Phonetic
Alphabet offers the two intonation marks shown in the box at the head of this article.
Global rising and falling intonation are marked with a diagonal arrow rising left-to-
right [sageata dreapta sus] and falling left-to-right [sageata dreapta jos], respectively.
These may be written as part of a syllable, or separated with a space when they have a
broader scope:
He found it on the street?

[ hiː ˈfaʊnd ɪt | ɒn ðə ↗︎ˈˈstɹiːt ‖ ]

Here the rising pitch on street indicates that the question hinges on that word, on where
he found it, not whether he found it.
Yes, he found it on the street.

[↗︎ˈjɛs ‖ hi ˈfaʊnd ɪt | ɒn ðə ↗︎ˈstɹiːt ‖ ]


How did you ever escape?

[↗︎ˈˈhaʊ dɪdjuː | ˈɛvɚ | ə↗︎ˈˈskeɪp ‖ ]

Here, as is common with wh- questions, there is a rising intonation on the question
word, and a falling intonation at the end of the question.
In many descriptions of English, the following intonation patterns are distinguished:
Rising Intonation means the pitch of the voice rises over time.
Falling Intonation means that the pitch falls with time.
Dipping or Fall-rise Intonation falls and then rises.
Peaking or Rise-fall Intonation rises and then falls.

Functions
All vocal languages use pitch pragmatically in intonation—for instance for emphasis, to
convey surprise or irony, or to pose a question. Tonal languages such
as Chinese and Hausa use intonation in addition to using pitch for distinguishing
words.[2] Many writers have attempted to produce a list of distinct functions of
intonation. Perhaps the longest was that of W.R. Lee,[3] who proposed ten. J.C.
Wells[4]and E. Couper-Kuhlen[5] both put forward six functions. Wells's list is given
below; the examples are not his:
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, as in the case of the material in parentheses
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.
It is not known whether such a list would apply to other languages without
alteration.

The Romanian language does not use long and short vocals. In the English language
the elongation of the word can change its meaning. The elongation is named:
 monoftong- vocals that do not change in time of sound[ bad( răi), dogs (cîini),
good people (oameni buni)].
 Diftongi- vocals, which include the 2 sounds: vechi (ould).

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