The Functions of Intonation PDF

The Functions of Intonation Suprasegmental Phonology of English and Dialectology II Contents 01 The attitudinal or expressive function The accentual, informational or focusing 02 function 03 The grammatical function Contents 04 The discourse or cohesive function 05 The natural...

The Functions of Intonation Suprasegmental Phonology of English and Dialectology II Contents 01 The attitudinal or expressive function The accentual, informational or focusing 02 function 03 The grammatical function Contents 04 The discourse or cohesive function 05 The naturalness or indexical function 06 The lexico-semantic function The attitudinal or expressive function 01 Emotions or attitudes are conveyed in speech; many times beyond lexical meaning.  ̀ Good morning (normal greeting) Good ˊmorning (casual, routine greeting) Good ˆmorning (cordial greeting) ˈGood ˆmorning (enthusiastic greeting) Vivanco (2019: 3)  The attitudinal or expressive function It allows speakers to express emotions or attitudes in their speech beyond lexical meaning.  The accentual, informational, 02 or focusing function It allows the speaker to draw the listener’s attention to a certain piece of information.  03 The grammatical function Intonation makes it possible to differentiate the syntactic structure of utterances. It shows the difference between phrases, clauses, statements, questions, and other structures. It also indicates their boundaries. I ˈwont have any ˏtea | I dont ̀like it In ˇFrance ‖ where ˈfarms ˈtend to be ˇsmaller ‖ the ˈsubsidies are ˈmore ̀ im portant ˈThose who ˈsold ˇquickly | ˈmade a ˋprofit Those who ˇ sold | ˈquickly ˈmade a ˋprofit  04 The discourse or cohesive function “It allows speakers to express their intentions, indicate the speaker's expectations about a listener’s reply, facilitate cooperation between speakers in structuring a discourse, and mark the shared mutual Chun (2002: 56) knowledge of a speaker and listener.”  It allows us to distinguish between new and old information. (new information usually has falling tones and old ones rising tones) It marks contrasts or coherence between grammatical structures. (listing, narrating, contrasting in the same utterance). It signals turn-taking or what kind of response to a question or comment is expected from the listener. (certain tones indicate you have finished speaking, and others indicate that you still have something to say.).  05 The naturalness or indexical function Distinctive intonation patterns allow us to tell who is speaking or that a certain kind of discourse is being spoken. In John Wells’ words, “…intonation may act as a marker of personal identity. What makes mothers sound like mothers, lovers sound like lovers, lawyers sound like lawyers, […] newsreaders sound like newsreaders.” (2006). It is also called the sociolinguistic function of intonation.  The naturalness or indexical function Distinctive intonation patterns allow us to tell who is speaking or that a certain kind of discourse is being spoken.  06 The lexico-semantic function Distinctive intonation patterns allow us to tell who is speaking or that a certain kind of discourse is being spoken. Tone languages like Mandarin Chinese or Vietnamese or sub-Saharan African languages like Akan or Ewe use pitch movement to convey lexical meaning.  recap Attitudinal Accentual Grammatical Emotions are identifiable By placing the tone on the Syntactic structures can be through intonation, many syllable of a particular word, it distinguished using times independently of lexical is possible to highlight a piece intonation. content. of information. Discourse Naturalness Lexico-semantic Cohesion, expected responses The recurrent intonation In tone or tonal languages, negotiation in the construction patterns that are related to different pitch movements on of conversation (e.g., turn- particular types of discourse or the same combination of taking) speakers. sounds make it possible to assign different meanings.  references Chun, D. M. (2002). Discourse intonation in L2: From Theory and Research to Practice. John Benjamins Publishing. Langfocus (2022, November 30). Tones in the Yoruba language [Video]. https://youtube.com/shorts/xRp1iW_iQQc?si=gP5OtTx4cX0d42Bp Parlati, A. (2022, March 21). Intonation is fundamental [Video]. YouTube. https://youtube.com/shorts/wfLKvREUwPY?si=KmjwrySV5uKfRU0x Roach, P. (2009). English Phonetics and Phonology: A Practical Course. Cambridge University Press.  references Vivanco, H. (2019). Suprasegmental Features. [course notes]. UNIVERSIDAD DE CHILE. Wells, J. C. (2006). English intonation: An introduction. Cambridge University Press. Yip, M. J. W. (2002). Tone. Cambridge University Press. next Account of the most recurrent intonation patterns found in statements.