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09 Tone and Intonation

The document discusses intonation as a key aspect of English phonetics, highlighting its role in conveying meaning and emotion through pitch variations. It contrasts intonation in English with tone languages like Mandarin, emphasizing that intonation affects how statements are perceived rather than their lexical meaning. The text also covers the significance of pitch control and describes different types of tones, including level and moving tones.

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60 views

09 Tone and Intonation

The document discusses intonation as a key aspect of English phonetics, highlighting its role in conveying meaning and emotion through pitch variations. It contrasts intonation in English with tone languages like Mandarin, emphasizing that intonation affects how statements are perceived rather than their lexical meaning. The text also covers the significance of pitch control and describes different types of tones, including level and moving tones.

Uploaded by

IK
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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ESLB2083 ENGLISH PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY

TOPIC: Tones and Intonation


What is Intonation?

• Part of the suprasegmental phonology


of English.
• Pitch of the voice plays an important
part.
• The pitch of our voices is constantly
changing.
• English is an intonation language.
• Unlike Mandarin language, which is a
tone language- difference in pitch
pattern on a syllable can change the
lexical meaning.

• Example: refer right image.


• Intonation is about how we say things, rather
than what we say, the way the voice rises and
falls when speaking, in other words the music of
the language.

Just as words have stressed syllables,


sentences have regular patterns of stressed
words. In addition, the voice tends to rise, fall or
remain flat depending on the meaning or feeling
we want to convey (surprise, anger, interest,
boredom, gratitude, etc.). Intonation therefore
indicates the mood of the speaker.
Describing and transcribing intonation

• The ability to transcribe intonation is not an


easily acquired thing.
• Pitch is described in terms of high and low.
• In phonemic transcription of English, we are
only interested in what it linguistically relevant.
• One speaker will normally speak with a different
overall pitch to another.
• This is not linguistically significant, but due to
physiology.
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A note on pitch

• Pitch refers to the auditory sensation perceived


by a listener.
• The rate of vibration of the vocal folds is called
the fundamental frequency
- Physically measurable
- Related to activity on the part of the speaker.
• The frequency of vibration of the vocal cords is
determined by their thickness, their length and
their tension.
• As Martha (1996:148) states, one’s natural
average pitch level depends on the size of the
vocal cords. In general, men have thicker and
longer vocal cords than women and children do.
• As a result, the modal pitch of man’s voice is
generally lower than that of a woman or a child.
Intonation

• in order to be linguistically significant, pitch difference need to be:

- Under the speaker’s control


- Perceptible
- Showing contrast (one pattern to another)

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Form and Function

• We need to know the following things:

- What is the form of intonation in English?


- What is the function of intonation in English?

• How is the meaning of an utterance affected by using different tones?


• Tones can be divided into many groups
• Roach (2000) uses level and moving.
• It is also possible to use referring and proclaiming, as in the work of David Brazil

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Level tones and moving tones

• A level tone on a one-syllable word can sound unnatural


• Moving tones are more common
• The pitch of a moving tone moves from one level to another-and sometimes back again
• A falling tone sounds definite
• A rising tone sounds more open or questioning.

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