Intonation system of English in the process of historical development
THE MINISTRY OF HIGHER SPECIAL
EDUCATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTANAblai Khan University of International
Relations and World LanguagesFacultyDepartment of Theory and Practice of
Foreign Languages
paperthe topic:
Intonation system of English in the
process of historical development
Done by: Mukhamediyarov S.K.208adviser: Zhaparova A.A.
2012
Contents
Introduction
1. Intonation in English
1.1 Intonation: approaches, definitions, functions
1.2 Components of intonation and the structure of English
intonation group
1.3 The phonological aspect of intonation
1.4 Two main functions of intonation
1.5 Intonation and linguistics
l.6 Structure and function of intonation
1.7 Pronunciation and intonation achievement factors
2. Intonation as a text - organizing means
2.1 Dynamic approach to rhytmization and intonation phrasing
2.2 Segmental and supersegmental phonology
Conclusion
Bibliography
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Appendix 3
Introduction
Actuality of the problem. Just like
Latin was the language meant to gather people as the Roman Empire went on its
row of conquests all over Europe and later, during the Enlightenment Period, it
was French, at this moment English has this function., as English has become
more and more popular, people of all cultures learn and speak the language
around the whole world. We should ask ourselves, then, how much English
language is influenced by other languages and how much of this influence is acceptable.being
English the most spoken language in the world, its pronunciation is many times
considered less important than grammar or written comprehension. But it must be
remembered that the four main abilities of a language - reading, writing,
listening and speaking - have all the same importance. Or even, as history
recalls: Register came only after oral communication.the students are taught
intonation at the same time that they learn vocabulary or grammar, like it
happens when they learn their mother language, it would be easier for them to
learn to speak the language naturally.’s why I chose this theme for my course
paper.are a variety of methods for recording intonation patterns in writing and
the advantages and disadvantages of some of the commoner ones. The first three
methods reflect variations in pitch only:
1. The method introduced by Ch. Fries involves
drawing a line around the sentence to show relative pitch heights.
. According to the second method the syllables
are written at different heights across the page. The method is particularly
favoured by D. Bolinger. This method is quite inconvenient as application wants
a special model of print.
. According to the third, “levels" method, a
number of discrete levels of pitch are recognized, and the utterance is marked
accordingly. This method was favoured by some American linguists such as K. L.
Pike and others who recognized four levels of pitch, low, normal, high and
extra-high, numbering them from 1-4. Since most linguists who have adopted this
method have favoured low-to-high numbering. This notation corresponds to the
pattern of the example illustrating the first method.
. The fourth method is favoured by most of the
British phoneticians such as D. Jones, R. Kingdon, J. O’Conner and G. Arnold,
M. Holliday, D. Crystal and others, as well as by phoneticians who have
successfully developed and improved it. This method has a number of advantages.
Firstly, not only variations of pitch but also stressed syllable are marked.
Secondly, distinct modifications of pitch in the nuclear syllable are indicated
by special symbols, i. e. by a downward and an upward arrow or a slantwise
stress mark. More than that. Pitch movements in the pre-nuclear part can be
indicated too. Thirdly, it is very convenient for marking intonation in texts.
One of the disadvantages of this method is that there has been no general
agreement about the number of terminal tones and pre-nuclear parts English
intonation system requires in order to provide adequate description. So the
simplest recognizes only two tones, a fall and a rise-easy to distinguish, but
not sufficient for the phonological analysis. Intonation is a powerful means of
human intercommunication. The communicative function the main function of
intonation. One of the aims of communication is the exchange of information
between people. The meaning of an English utterance, i. e. the information it
conveys to a listener, derives not only from the grammatical structure, the
lexical composition and the sound pattern. It also derives from variations of
intonation, i. e. of its prosodic parameters. The communicative function of
intonation is realized in various ways which can be grouped under five general
headings. Intonation serves:
. To structure the information content of a textual
unit so as to show which information is new or cannot be taken for granted, as
against information which the listener is assumed to possess or to be able to
acquire from the context, that is given information.
. To determine the speech function of a phrase,
i. e. to indicate whether it is intended as a statement, question, command,
etc.
. To convey conational meanings of
“attitude" such as surprise, annoyance, enthusiasm, involvement, etc. This
can include whether meanings are intended, over and above the meaning conveyed
by the lexical items and the grammatical structure. The difference between a
sincere intention and a sarcastic one would be conveyed by the intonation. Note
that in the written form, here are only the lexics and the grammar. The written
medium has very limited resources for marking intonation, and the meanings
conveyed by it have to be shown, if at all, in other ways.
. To structure a text. Intonation is an
organizing mechanism. On the one hand, it delimitates texts into smaller units,
i. e. phonetic passages, phrases and intonation groups, on the other hand, it
integrates these smaller constituents forming a complete text.
. To differentiate the meaning of textual units
of the same grammatical structure and the same lexical composition, which is
the distinctive or phonological function of intonation.
. To characterize a particular style or variety
of oral speech which may be called the stylistic function. There is no general
agreement about either the number or the headings of the functions of
intonation which can be illustrated by the difference in the approach to the
subject by some prominent phoneticians. T. M. Nikolajeva names the three
functions of intonations: delimitating, integrating and semantic functions
suggests the semantic, syntactic functions the former being the primary and the
two letter being the secondary functions singles out the fallowing main
functions of intonation: communicative, distinctive, delimitating, expressive,
appellative, aesthetic, integrating. Intonation is a powerful not possible to
devorce any function of intonation from that of communication. In oral English
the smallest piece of information is associated with an intonation group, that
is a unit of intonation containing the nucleus. There is no exact match between
punctuation in writing and intonation groups in speech. Speech is more variable
in its structuring of information than writing. Cutting up speech into
intonation groups depends on such things as the speed at which you are
speaking, what emphasis you want to give to the parts of the message, and the
length of grammatical units. A single phrase may have just one intonation
group; but when the length of phrase goes beyond a certain point, it is
difficult not to split it into two or more separate pieces of information.
Accentual systems involve more than singling out important words by accenting
them. Intonation group or phrase accentuation focuses on the nucleus of these
intonation units.
The aim is defining general,
functional characteristics of intonation as text-organizing means.
The object is theoretical phonetics
of the English language.
The subject is intonation system of
English language in the process of historical development
The tasks of the research:
1. To analyze theoretical material on the problem
of the research.
. To use theoretical and practical parts of
intonation
. To find activities of intonation in historical
development.
Following methods of the research were used
during the writing of the work:
) Analytical and selective study of the theory
available;
) Drawing conclusions
The source consists
of scientific, phonetic materials, teaching aids, articles on phonetics.
intonation english phonological pronunciation
1. Intonation in English
1.1 Intonation: approaches, definitions, functions
Intonation is a language universal. There are no
languages which are spoken without any change of prosodic parameters but
intonation functions in various languages in a different way.are two main
approaches to the problem of intonation in Great Britain. One is known as a contour
analysis and the other may be called grammatical.first is represented by a
large group of phoneticians: H. Sweet, D. Jones, G. Palmer, L. Armstrong, I.
Ward, R. Kingdon, J. O'Connor, A. Gimson and others. It is traditional and
widely used. According to this approach the smallest unit to which linguistic
meaning can be attached is a tone-group (sense-group). Their theory is based on
the assumption that intonation consists of basic functional "blocks".
They pay much attention to these "blocks" but not to the way they are
connected. Intonation is treated by them as a layer that is superimposed on the
lexico-grammatical structure. In fact the aim of communication determines the
intonation structure, not vice versa.grammatical approach to the study of
intonation was worked out by M. Halliday. The main unit of intonation is a
clause. Intonation is a complex of three systemic variables: tonality, tonicity
and tone, which are connected with grammatical categories. Tonality marks the
beginning and the end of a tone-group. Tonicity marks the focal point of each
tone-group. Tone is the third unit in Halliday's system. Tones can be primary
and secondary. They convey the attitude of the speaker. Hallyday's theory is
based on the syntactical function of intonation.founder of the American school
of intonation K. Pike in his book "The Intonation of American
English" considers "pitch phonemes" and "contours" to
be the main units of intonation. He describes different contours and their
meanings, but the word "meaning" stands apart from communicative
function of intonation.is wide agreement among Russian linguists that on
perception level intonation is a complex, a whole, formed by significant variations
of pitch, loudness and tempo closely related. Some Russian linguists regard
speech timbre as the fourth component of intonation. Neither its material form
nor its linguistic function has been thoroughly described. Though speech timbre
definitely conveys certain shades of attitudinal or emotional meaning there is
no good reason to consider it alongside with the three prosodic components of
intonation, i. e. pitch, loudness and tempo.. Sokolova and others write that
the term prosody embraces the three prosodic components and substitutes the
term intonation. It is widely used in linguistic literature, it causes no
misunderstanding and, consequently, it is more adequate. They feel strongly
that this term would be more suitable for their book too, but, unfortunately,
it has not been accepted in the teaching process yet.foreign scholars (A.
Gimson, R. Kingdon) restrict the formal definition of intonation to pitch
movement alone, though occasionally allowing in variations of loudness as well.
According to D. Crystal, the most important prosodic effects are those conveyed
by the linguistic use of pitch movement, or melody. It is clearly not possible
to restrict the term intonation by the pitch parameters only because generally
all the three prosodic parameters function as a whole though in many cases the
priority of the pitch parameter is quite evident.is no general agreement about
either the number or the headings of the functions of intonation which can be
illustrated by the difference in the approach to the subject by some prominent
Russian phoneticians. T. M. Nikolayeva names three functions of intonation:
delimitating, integrating and semantic. L. K. Tseplitis suggests the semantic,
syntactic and stylistic functions the former being the primary and the two
latter being the secondary functions. N. V. Cheremisina singles out the
following main functions of intonation: communicative, distinctive (or
phonological), delimitating, expressive, appellative, aesthetic, integrating.
Other Russian and foreign phoneticians also display some difference in heading
the linguistic functions of intonation.. Crystal distinguishes the following
functions of intonation.function's most obvious role is to express attitudinal
meaning - sarcasm, surprise, reserve, impatience, delight, shock, anger,
interest, and thousands of other semantic nuances.function helps to identify
grammatical structure in speech, performing a role similar to punctuation.
Units such as clause and sentence often depend on intonation for their spoken
identity, and several specific contrasts, such as question/statement, make
systematic use of it.function helps draw attention to what meaning is given and
what is new in an utterance. The word carrying the most prominent tone in a
contour signals the part of an utterance that the speaker is treating as new
information.function helps larger units of meaning than the sentence to
contrast and cohere. In radio news-reading, paragraphs of information can be
shaped through the use of pitch. In sports commentary, changes in prosody
reflect the progress of the action.function helps us to organize speech into
units that are easier to perceive and memorize. Most people would find a
sequence of numbers, for example, difficult to recall. The task is made easier
by using intonation to chunk the sequence into two units. Indexical function,
along with other prosodic features, is an important marker of personal or
social identity. Lawyers, preachers, newscasters, sports commentators, army
sergeants, and several other occupations are readily identified through their
distinctive prosody. [1,45]
1.2 Components of intonation and the structure of English
intonation group
us consider the
components of intonation.the pitch component we may consider the distinct
variations in the direction of pitch, pitch level and pitch range.to R. Kingdon
the most important nuclear tones in English are: Low Fall, High Fall, Low Rise,
High Rise, and Fall-Rise. (see Appendix 1)meanings of the nuclear tones are
difficult to specify in general terms. Roughly speaking the falling tone of any
level and range expresses certainty, completeness, and independence. A rising
tone on the contrary expresses uncertainty, incompleteness or dependence. A
falling-rising tone may combine the falling tone's meaning of assertion, certainty
with the rising tone's meaning of dependence, incompleteness. At the end of a
phrase it often conveys a feeling of reservation; that is, it asserts something
and at the same time suggests that there is something else to be said. At the
beginning or in the middle of a phrase it is a more forceful alternative to the
rising tone, expressing the assertion of one point, together with the
implication that another point is to follow. The falling-rising tone, as its
name suggests, consists of a fall in pitch followed by a rise. If the nucleus
is the last syllable of the intonation group the fall and rise both take place
on one syllable. In English there is often clear evidence of an
intonation-group boundary, but no audible nuclear tone movement preceding. In such
a circumstance two courses are open: either one may classify the phenomenon as
a further kind of head or one may consider it to be the level nuclear tone. Low
Level tone is very characteristic of reading poetry. Mid-Level tone is
particularly common in spontaneous speech functionally replacing the rising
tone. There are two more nuclear tones in English: Rise-Fall and
Rise-Fall-Rise. But adding refinement to speech they are not absolutely
essential tones for the foreign learner to acquire. Rise-Fall can always be
replaced by High Fall and Rise-Fall-Rise by Fall-Rise without making nonsense
of the utterance.to D. Crystal, there are nine ways of saying Yes as an answer
to the question Will you marry me?
. Low fall. The most
neutral tone; a detached, unemotional statement of fact.
. Full fall. Emotionally
involved; the higher the onset of the tone, the more involved the speaker;
choice of emotion (surprise, excitement, irritation) depends on the speaker's
facial expression.
. Mid fall. Routine,
uncommitted comment; detached and unexcited.
. Low rise. Facial
expression important; with a 'happy' face, the tone is sympathetic and
friendly; with a 'grim' face, it is guarded and ominous.
. Full rise. Emotionally
involved, often "disbelief or shock, the extent of the emotion depending
on the width of the tone.
. High rise.mild query or
puzzlement; often used in echoing what has just been said.
. Level. Bored,
sarcastic, ironic.
. Fall-rise. A strongly
emotional tone; a straight or 'negative' face conveys uncertainty, doubt, or
tentativeness; a positive face conveys encouragement or urgency.
. Rise-fall. Strong
emotional involvement; depending on the face, the attitude might be delighted,
challenging, or complacent.more pitch parameters are pitch ranges and pitch
levels. Three pitch ranges are generally distinguished: normal, wide, and
narrow. Pitch levels may be high, medium, and low.is used in a variety of ways.
Gross differences of meaning (such as anger, menace, and excitement) can be
conveyed by using an overall loudness level.tempo of speech is the third
component of intonation. The term tempo implies the rate of the utterance and
pausation. The rate of speech can be normal, slow and fast. The parts of the
utterance which are particularly important sound slower. Unimportant parts are
commonly pronounced at a greater speed than normal. [2,89]stretch of speech can
be split into smaller portions, i. e. phonetic wholes, phrases, intonation
groups by means of pauses. By 'pause' here we mean a complete stop of
phonation. We may distinguish the following three kinds of pauses:
. Short pauses which may
be used to separate intonation groups within a phrase.
. Longer pauses which
normally manifest the end of the phrase.
. Very long pauses, which
are approximately twice as long as the first type, are used to separate
phonetic wholes., there may be distinguished syntactic, emphatic and hesitation
pauses.pauses separate phonopassages, phrases, and intonation groups. Emphatic
pauses serve to make especially prominent certain parts of the utterance.
Hesitation pauses are mainly used in spontaneous speech to gain some time to
think over what to say next. They may be silent or filled.syllable of the
speech chain has a special pitch colouring. Some of the syllables have significant
moves of tone up and down. Each syllable bears a definite amount of loudness.
Pitch movements are inseparably connected with loudness. Together with the
tempo of speech they form an intonation pattern which is the basic unit of
intonation. An intonation pattern contains one nucleus and may contain other
stressed or unstressed syllables normally preceding or following the nucleus.
The boundaries of an intonation pattern may be marked by stops of phonation
that is temporal pauses.patterns serve to actualize syntagms in oral speech. It
may be well to remind you here that the syntagm is a group of words which is
semantically and syntactically complete. In phonetics actualized syntagms are
called intonation groups (sense-groups, tone-groups). Each intonation group may
consist of one or more potential syntagms, e. g. the sentence / think he is
coming soon has two potential syntagms: / think and he is coming soon. In oral
speech it is normally actualized as one intonation group.intonation group is a
stretch of speech which may have the length of the whole phrase. But the phrase
often contains more than one intonation group. The number of intonation groups
depends on the length of the phrase and the degree of semantic importance or
emphasis given to various parts of it:bed was not' slept, in-,This be was not'
slept inadditional terminal tone on this bed expresses an emphasis on this bed
in contrast to other beds.all stressed syllables are of equal
importance. One of the syllables has the greater prominence than the others and
forms the nucleus, or focal point of an intonation pattern. Formally the
nucleus may be described as a strongly stressed syllable which is generally the
last strongly accented syllable of an intonation pattern and which marks a
significant change of pitch direction, that is where the pitch goes distinctly
up or down. The nuclear tone is the most important part of the intonation
pattern without which the latter cannot exist at all. On the other hand an
intonation pattern may consist of one syllable which is its nucleus. The tone
of a nucleus determines the pitch of the rest of the intonation pattern
following it which is called the tail. Thus after a falling tone, the rest of
the intonation pattern is at a low pitch. After a rising tone the rest of the
intonation pattern moves in an upward pitch direction:, Mary - Well,
Mary.nucleus and the tail form what is called terminal tone. The two other
sections of the intonation pattern are the head and the pre-head which form the
pre-nuclear part of the intonation pattern and, like the tail, they may be
looked upon as optional elements:
àLake District
is one of the loveliest 'parts of, Britain.pre-nuclear part can take a variety
of pitch patterns. Variation within the prе-nucleus does not usually affect the
grammatical meaning of the utterance, though it often conveys meanings
associated with attitude or phonetic styles. There are three common types of
prе-nucleus: a descending type in which the pitch gradually descends (often in
"steps") to the nucleus; an ascending type in which the syllables
form an ascending sequence and a level type when all the syllables stay more or
less on the same level. The meaning of the intonation group is the combination
of the "meaning" of the terminal tone and the pre-nuclear part
combined with the "meaning" of pitch range and pitch level. The parts
of the intonation pattern can be combined in various ways manifesting changes
in meaning, cf.: the High Head combined with Low Fall, High Fall, Low Rise,
High Rise, Fall-Rise in the phrase Not at all.
>Not at all (reserved,
calm).
>Not at all)
(surprised, concerned).
>Not at all
(encouraging, friendly).
> Not at all
(intensely encouraging, protesting).more the height of the pitch contrasts
within the intonation pattern the more emphatic the intonation group sounds,
cf.:'s won. Fan tastic.tastic.changes of pitch, loudness and tempo are not
haphazard variations. The rules of change are highly organized. No matter how
variable the individual variations of these prosodic components are they tend
to become formalized or standardized, so that all speakers of the language use
them in similar ways under similar circumstances. These abstracted
characteristics of intonation structures may be called intonation patterns
which form the prosodic system of English. Some intonation patterns may be
completely colourless in meaning: they give to the listener no implication of
the speaker's attitude or feeling. They serve a mechanical function - they
provide a mold into which all sentences may be poured so that they achieve
utterance. Such intonation patterns represent the intonational minimum of
speech. The number of possible combinations is more than a hundred but not all
of them ate equally important. Some of them do not differ much in meaning,
others are very rarely used. That is why in teaching it is necessary to deal
only with a very limited number of intonation patterns, which are the result of
a careful choice. [3,78]
1.3 The phonological aspect of intonation
has a special branch,
intonology, whose domain is the larger units of connected speech: intonation
groups, phrases and even phonetic passages or blocks of discourse.descriptions
of intonation show that phonological facts of intonation system are much more open
to question than in the field of segmental phonology. Descriptions differ
according to the kind of meaning they regard intonation is carrying and also
according to the significance they attach to different parts of the tone-unit.
J. D. O'Connor and G. F. Arnold assert that a major function of intonation is
to express the speaker's attitude to the situation he/she is placed in, and
they attach these meanings not to pre-head, head and nucleus separately, but to
each of ten 'tone-unit types' *as they combine with each of four sentence
types, statement, question, command and exclamation.. Halliday supposes that
English intonation contrasts are grammatical. He argues first that there is a
neutral or unmarked tone choice and then explains all other choices as meaningful
by contrast. Thus if one takes the statement I don't know the suggested
intonational meanings are: Low Fall - neutral. Low Rise - non-committal, High
Rise - contradictory, Fall-Rise - with reservation, Rise-Fall - with
commitment. Unlike J. D. O'Connor and G. F. Arnold, M. Halliday attributes
separate significance to the prе-nuclear choices, again taking one choice as
neutral and the other (s) as meaningful by contrast.. Crystal presents an
approach based on the view "that any explanation of intonational meaning
cannot be arrived at by seeing the issues solely in either grammatical or
attitudinal terms". He ignores the significance of pre-head and head
choices and deals only with terminal tones.is still impossible to classify, in
any practical analysis of intonation, all the fine shades of feeling and
attitude which can be conveyed by slight changes in pitch, by lengthening or
shortening tones, by increasing or decreasing the loudness of the voice, by
changing its quality, and in various other ways. On the other hand it is quite
possible to make a broad classification of intonation patterns which are so
different in their nature that they materially: change the meaning of the
utterance and to make different pitches and degrees of loudness in each of them.
Such an analysis resembles the phonetic analysis of sounds of a language
whereby phoneticians establish the number of significant sounds it uses.
[4,85]distinctive function of intonation is realized in the opposition of the
same word sequences which differ in certain parameters of the intonation
pattern. Intonation patterns make their distinctive contribution at intonation
group, phrase and text levels. Thus in the phrases:Mary, comes let me à know at once (a few people are expected to come
but it is Mary who interests the speaker)- >Mary comes let me à know at once (no one else but Mary is expected
to come) the intonation patterns of the first intonation groups are opposed. In
the opposition I enjoyed it - I enjoyed it the pitch pattern operates over the
whole phrase adding in the second phrase the notion that the speaker has
reservations (implying a continuation something like 'but it could have been a
lot better').section of the intonation pattern, any of its three constituents
can perform the distinctive function thus being phonological units. These units
form a complex system of intonemes, tonemes, accentemes, chronemes, etc. These
phonological units like phonemes consist of a number of variants. The terminal
tonemes, for instance, consist of a number of allotones, which are mutually
non-distinctive. The principal allotone is realized in the nucleus alone. The
subsidiary allotones are realized not only in the nucleus, but also in the
pre-head and in the tail, if there are any, cf.:. No, Tom. Oh, no, Mary.most
powerful phonological unit is the terminal tone. The opposition of terminal
tones distinguishes different types of sentence. The same sequence of words may
be interpreted as a different syntactical type, i. e. a statement or a
question, a question or an exclamation being pronounced with different terminal
tones, e. g.:saw it (statement) - Tom saw it? (general question)'t you enjoy
it? (general question) - Didn't you enjoy it? (exclamation)you be quiet?
(request) - Will you be quiet? (command).number of terminal tones indicates the
number of intonation groups. Sometimes the number of intonation groups may be
important for meaning. For example, the sentence My sister, who lives in the
South, has just arrived may mean two different things. In oral speech it is
marked by using two or three intonation groups. If the meaning is: 'my only
sister who happens to live in the South', then the division would be into three
intonation groups: My sister, who lives in the South, has just arrived. On the
other hand, if the meaning is 'that one of my two sisters, who lives in the
South', the division is into two intonation groups.with the increase of
loudness terminal tones serve to single out the semantic centre of the
utterance. By semantic centre we mean the information centre which may
simultaneously concentrate the expression of attitudes and feelings. The words
in an utterance do not necessarily all contribute an equal amount of
information, some are more important to the meaning than others. This largely
depends on the context or situation in which the intonation group or a phrase
is said. Some words are predisposed by their function in the language to be
stressed. In English lexical (content) words are generally accented while
grammatical (form) words are more likely to be unaccented although words
belonging to both of these groups may be unaccented or accented if the meaning
requires it.us consider the sentence It was an unusually rainy day. As the
beginning of, say, a story told on the radio the last three words would be
particularly important, they form the semantic centre with the nucleus on the
word day. The first three words play a minor part. The listener would get a
pretty clear picture of the story's setting if the first three words were not
heard and the last three were heard clearly. If the last three words which form
the semantic centre were lost there would be virtually no information gained at
all. [5,48]same sentences may be said in response to the question What sort of
day was it? In this case the word day in the reply would lose some of its force
because the questioner already possesses the information that it might
otherwise have given him. In this situation there are only two important words
- unusually rainy - and they would be sufficient as a complete answer to the
question. The nucleus will be on the word rainy. Going further still, in reply
to the question Did it rain yesterday? the single word unusually would bear the
major part of the information, would be, in this sense, more important than all
the others and consequently would be the nucleus of the intonation
pattern.words may be also important to the meaning if the context makes them
so. The word was, for instance, has had little value in the previous examples,
but if the sentences were said as a contradiction in the reply to It wasn 't a
rainy day yesterday, was it?, then was would be the most important word of all
and indeed, the reply might simply be It was, omitting the following words as
no longer worth saying. In this phrase the word was is the nucleus of the
semantic centre.variations of the accentuation achieved by shifting the
position of the terminal tone serve a striking example of how the opposition of
the distribution of terminal tones is fulfilling the distinctive function.the phrase
I don't want you to read anything has the low-falling terminal tone on the word
anything, it means that for this or other reason the person should avoid
reading. If the same word sequence is pronounced with the falling-rising tone
on the same word, the phrase means that the person must have a careful choice
in reading.should be pointed out here that the most important role of the
opposition of terminal tones is that of differentiating the attitudes and
emotions expressed by the speaker. The speaker must be particularly careful
about the attitudes and emotions he expresses since the hearer is frequently
more interested in the speaker's attitude or feeling than in his words - that
is whether he speaks nicely or nastily. For instance, the special question Why?
may be pronounced with the low falling tone sounding rather detached, sometimes
even hostile. When pronounced with the low-rising tone it is sympathetic,
friendly, interested. [6,48]the other sections of the intonation pattern
differentiate only attitudinal or emotional meaning, e. g.: being pronounced
with the high рге-head, Hello sounds more friendly than when pronounced with
the low pre-head, cf.:
à He llo! - O
He llo!commonly, however, different kinds of pre-heads, heads, the same as
pitch ranges and levels fulfil their distinctive function not alone but in the
combination with other prosodic constituents.have been concerned with the
relationship between intonation, grammatical patterns and lexical composition.
Usually the speaker's intonation is in balance with the words and structures he
chooses. If he says something nice, his intonation usually reflects the same
characteristic. All types of questions, for instance, express a certain amount
of interest which is generally expressed in their grammatical structure and a
special interrogative intonation. However, there are cases when intonation is
in contradiction with the syntactic structure and the lexical content of the
utterance neutralizing and compensating them, e. g.: a statement may sound questioning,
tes the grammatical means of expressing this kind of meaning: Do you know what
I'm here for? - No (questioning). There are cases when intonation neutralizes
or compensates the lexical content of the utterance as it happens. [7,52]
.4 Two main functions of intonation
Intonation performs several important functions
in English. The first function is uniting separate words into sentences in oral
speech. The second function of intonation is distinguishing between types of
sentences: statements, questions, commands, requests, exclamations, etc. Also,
intonation allows us to express emotions: finality, confidence, interest,
surprise, doubt, joy, pain, irony, etc. when the meaning of the word please is
neutralized by intonation.of balance between intonation and word content, or
intonation and the grammatical structure of the utterance may serve special
speech effects. A highly forceful or exciting statement said with a very
matter-of-fact intonation may, by its lack of balance, produce a type of irony;
if one says something very complimentary, but with an intonation of contempt,
the result is an insult. The intonation pattern used gives information
about whether an utterance is a statement or a question, the type of question
and expected response, or whether something is part of a series of items, or
something on its own.a statement, the intonation falls on the last syllable of
a sentence. e. g. .is a similar pattern in an information (WH)
question; these structures are identified by both the question word that starts
the sentence and by the intonation pattern. e. g. information question
contrasts with a “yes/no" question in which the intonation rises on the
final syllable. e. g. a series, the first item (s) has rising
intonation and the last one has falling intonation. e. g. the intonation pattern is
incorrect, then the listener receives a confusing message and can be unsure of
how to respond.is very important to understand that intonation patterns
themselves have meaning. One and the same word or phrase pronounced with different
types of intonation will convey different meanings and will be understood
differently, for example: No. - No? - No! Change of standard patterns of
intonation also has meaning, for example, rising intonation makes a command
more polite, more like a request.intonation is very different from Russian
intonation. Both languages use falling and rising intonation, but they are not
the same in English and Russian. It’s very important not to bring Russian
intonation into English because intonation patterns from Russian may convey a
different meaning in English and cause misunderstanding and even produce an
unfavorable impression of you.is necessary to study English intonation together
with your study of grammar and vocabulary as soon as you start studying English
because it will be difficult to get rid of the Russian accent later on. The
best way to study English intonation is by listening and repeating. Marking the
stresses, pauses, falling and rising intonation and other phonetic phenomena in
the written copy of the recording that you are listening to helps to understand
and memorize intonation patterns. It is also very useful to record your reading
of the text transcript and compare your result with the audio file you have
studied. The next step may be watching a film in English and listening for the
intonation patterns that you have studied and started to use and so on.on
pronunciation and intonation is hard work that requires patience and
perseverance, and intonation patterns are especially difficult to master. A
good ear helps a lot, so train your skills by listening and repeating, reciting
poems and singing in English as often as you can. [8,59]
1.5 Intonation and linguistics
Rising intonation means the pitch of the voice
increases over time; falling intonation means that the pitch decreases with
time. A dipping intonation falls and then rises, whereas a peaking intonation
rises and then falls.classic example of intonation is the question-statement
distinction. For example, northeastern American English, like very many
languages, has a rising intonation for echo or declarative questions (He found
it on the street?), and a falling intonation for wh - questions (Where did he
find it?) and statements (He found it on the street.). Yes or no questions (Did
he find it on the street?) often have a rising end, but not always. Some
languages like Chikasaw and kalaallisut have the opposite pattern: rising for
statements and falling with questions.of British and Irish English vary
substantially, with rises on many statements in urban Belfast, and falls on
most questions in urban Leeds.the International Phonetic Alphabet,
"global" rising and falling intonation are marked with a diagonal
arrow rising left-to-right [?] and falling left-to-right [?], respectively.
These may be written as part of a syllable, or separated with a space when they
have a broader scope:found it on the street?
[hi?? fa? nd? t |? n????? st? i? t?]the rising
pitch on street indicates that the question hinges on that word, on where he
found it, not whether he found it., he found it on the street.
[?? j? s? hi? fa? nd? t |? n???? st? i? t?]did
you ever escape?
[??? ha? d? dju? |?? v? |???? ske? p?], 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.intonationintonation may
become semi-lexicalized in common expressions such as "I'unno" (I
don't know), and therefore starts to approach the domain of tone. Pitch also
plays a role in distinguishing acronyms that might otherwise be mistaken for
common words. For example, in the phrase "Nike asks that you
play-Participate in the Lives of America's Youth", [2] the acronym play
may be pronounced with a high tone to distinguish it from the verb 'play',
which would also make sense in this context. However, the high tone is only
employed for disambiguation, and is therefore contrastive intonation rather
than true lexical tone. [9,78]
l.6 Structure and function of intonation
is the music of the language. In English, we use
tone to signal emotion, questioning, and parts of the sentence among many other
things. It's important to recognize the meaning behind the tones used in
everyday speech, and to be able to use them so that there are no
misunderstandings between the speaker and the listener. It is generally true
that mistakes in pronunciation of sounds can be overlooked, but mistakes in
intonation make a lasting impression.has always been a difficult thing to
define. According to traditional descriptions, intonation is "the melody
of speech", and is to be analyzed in terms of variations in pitch.
Intonation is said to indicate the attitudes and emotions of the speaker, so
that a sentence like 'I think it's time to go now' can be said in a happy way,
a sad way, an angry way, and so on. While this is certainly true, there is
clearly more than just pitch variation involved in conveying such things, so
the definition of intonation becomes considerably more complicated. It is clear
that when we are expressing emotions, we also use different voice qualities,
different speaking rates, facial expressions, gestures, and so on. We must
indicate what type of information tye are presenting and how it is structured,
and at the same time we must keep our listeners' attention and their
participation in the exchange of information.communicative interaction would be
much more difficult without intonation: think how many misunderstandings
between people arise in the exchange of e-mail messages, where intonation
cannot play a role.English, as in many other languages, pitch is an important
component of accentuation, or prominence, both at the level of individual words
and at the level of longer utterances. In general, we distinguish between
pitches which are relatively steady-state, i. e. which do not change level
perceptibly, and those which change by stepping or sliding up or down to
another pitch level, as illustrated in the figure below. English intonation
characteristically slides or transitions gradually from one pitch level to the
next rather than stepping up or down abruptly from one pitch level to the next.
Thus, English intonation is best represented by "humps" and
"waves" rather than by "angles" and "steps".the
first one (with a falling movement on "any") says that she will go
out with nobody, while the second (with a falling-rising pitch movement) says
that she is careful about who she goes with.pitch of the voice is determined by
the frequency with which the vocal cords vibrate., The frequency of vibration
of the vocal cords is in turn determined by their thickness their length and
their tension. The modal pitch of the voice, i. e. 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
a man's voice is generally lower than that of a woman or a child.addition to
its modal pitch, every individual voice has a pitch range which can be achieved
by adjustments of the vocal cords.tightening the vocal cords, a person can
raise the pitch of the voice (vocal pitch); by loosening them, one can lower
vocal pitch.is also a natural variation in pitch associated with the amount of
air that is expended during speech. When the airflow through the glottis is
great, it causes the vocal cords to vibrate quickly. As airflow is reduced, the
effect on the vocal cords is diminished, and the frequency of vibration
decreases. Although it is possible to override these natural effects - e. g. by
changing the tension of the vocal folds - in the unmarked case, the pitch of
the voice will descend naturally over an utterance as the speaker's breath is
used up. This effect is called downdrift.a result of downdrift, there is a natural
iconic association of falling pitch with finality and related meanings such as
assurance or defini-tiveness. Conversely, there is a natural association of
non-falling (steady-state or rising) pitch with non-finality and related
meanings such as lack of assurance or non-definitiveness. The difference
between falling and non-falling or rising intonation is represented by
Cruttenden as that between "closed" (assertive) and "open"
(non-assertive) meaning.two compound patterns combine the meanings of falling
and rising intonation in interesting iconic meanings. The fall-rise pattern has
the meaning of both, i. e. both closed and open meaning. This signifies both
definiteness and indefiniteness simultaneously, in the sense that a referent is
instantiated but the utterance is not yet completed or in the sense that the
speaker feels some hesitancy, reservation, doubt or uncertainty. The rise-fall
pattern incorporates the fall of completion or assurance of the first pattern
with the emotional overtone of a high pitch in the middle of the utterance.
This is a so-called swell tone used for emphatic meaning: as the tone swells,
the meaning or emphasis increases. [10, 47]
1.7 Pronunciation and intonation achievement factors
all know that it is difficult for adults to learn
accurate pronunciation in a foreign language. We also know that some people
achieve better results than others. Why is this? What are the factors that
might predict which students will achieve good pronunciation? If we knew the
factors helping pronunciation, we could improve our own learning.Suter, a
language researcher at a California university, decided to test the relative
importance of factors that might predict which students would achieve the most
accurate pronunciation. He wanted to find out if there are any factors a
student could change in order to improve performance.first tiling Suter did was
to make a list of all the factors that might possibly show which student would
learn the best pronunciation. Then he compared these factors with the
pronunciation of a group of foreign students. Here is a list of six of the
factors Suter studied.
. Sex. Do females learn better than males?
. Mother tongue. Is it easier to learn a language
close to one’s own?
. Personality. Do out-going people learn pronunciation
better than shy people?
. Attitude toward pronunciation. Does it make a
difference if the student believes that pronunciation is a very important part
of language?
. Natural ability. How important is the ability
to mimic or imitate? Most people assume that natural ability is the single most
important factor in learning pronunciation.
. Conversation with natives. Does the amount of
conversation in English, with naïve speakers of
English, make a significant difference?Suter compared the students’ pronunciation
accuracy scores with this six variables, some of the results were surprising.
He found that two of the factors did not have any relation to the accuracy of
pronunciation. That is, these two factors were not at all significant in
predicting who would do well learning pronunciation.two factors were:
. Mother tongue. This was the most significant
factor in predicting achievement. If the student’s own language was closer to
English, the achievement was likely to be greater.
. Attitude about pronunciation. This was the
second most important factor in predicting achievement. In fact, a belief in
the importance of pronunciation was far more important than many of the
remaining factors. After the mother tongue factor, this factor of attitude was
the single most significant variable in predicting good pronunciation learning.
. Conversation with natives. The third most
important variable was the amount of time the student spent in conversation
with native speakers of English.
. Natural ability. This was the last important
variable. The ability to imitate helped, but it was not nearly as significant
as most people think. It was far less significant than the first
three.concluded that the three most significant predictors in achievement in
pronunciation are: (1) the student’s mother tongue, (2) the belief in the
importance of pronunciation, (3) the amount of time spent in conversations with
native speakers.conclusions of this research are encouraging. Of course, we
cannot change factor 1, our mother tongue. But we do have control over factors
2 and 3, which are the next important variables in learning accurate
pronunciation. First, we can decide that pronunciation is important, and
second, we can choose to make the effort to speak the new language with natives.
You might say that our own choice is the most significant factor in achievement
in the new language. [12,78]opinion regarding English Second Language pedagogy
in general and pronunciation in particular, has at least two generally accepted
theoretical cornerstones. The suprasegmental features of English - stress,
rhythm, intonation, linking, reduction, and deletion - are called prosodies.
These contribute more to meaning and overall listener perception of nonnative
speaker fluency than do the segmentals, the individual vowel and consonant
sounds.article describes two specific sets of activities - song and video - and
provides a template that readers can adapt and revise for their own populations
and settings. It should be stressed that the general model can be adapted to a
variety of pronunciation and grammar features., particularly, may be chosen so
that they are effective and engaging at almost any proficiency level. Song
recordings and video clips are particularly useful for nonnative speakers
teachers in English foreign language settings. Often in such situations few
native speaker models are available, and teachers sometimes lack confidence in
their ability to leach pronunciation. A final benefit of these types of
activities is that besides building pronunciation and grammar proficiency, they
also help improve students’ listening.are several ways to proceed, depending on
students’ proficiency level, the amount of time available, and any other
constraints. The following is one set of steps:
. Have the song playing as students enter the
class and/or play it through once as a warm-up before beginning the activity.
. Distribute typed copies of the text to the
students.
. Have students, working in pairs or small
groups, mark features.
. Have students practice some of the words and
put them into longer phrases and sentences.
. Play the recording one more time, asking the
class to speak along, and try to match the singer in the practiced features.
. Have students create their own short dialogues
and conversations using words and expressions from the song that have the
practiced features. If desired, this step can be done after step 7.
. Bring grammar into the activity by using a
cloze exercise. [13,48]
2. Intonation as a text - organizing means
English intonation is a pretty complicated and
varied phenomenon. There are dialectal and regional differences in intonation,
for example, there is a noticeable difference between British and American
intonation. Intonation may sound differently depending on whether the speakers
have high or low voices, speak fast or slowly, loudly or quietly,
energetically, emotionally, neutrally or listlessly. Men and women may have
their own differences and preferences in intonation. For the purpose of
studying, this variety may be described in several intonation patterns that are
characteristic of English speech. Intonation is the music of the language. In
English, we use tone to signal emotion, questioning, and parts of the sentence
among many other things. It's important to recognize the meaning behind the
tones used in everyday speech, and to be able to use them so that there are no
misunderstandings between the speaker and the listener. It is generally true
that mistakes in pronunciation of sounds can be overlooked, but mistakes in
intonation make a lasting impression.general, linguists distinguish several
main types of English intonation, where falling intonation and rising
intonation are the two basic types. The fall-rise pattern has the meaning of
both, i. e. both closed and open meaning. This signifies both definiteness and
indefiniteness simultaneously, in the sense that a referent is instantiated but
the utterance is not yet completed or in the sense that the speaker feels some
hesitancy, reservation, doubt or uncertainty. The rise-fall pattern
incorporates the fall of completion or assurance of the first pattern with the
emotional overtone of a high pitch in the middle of the utterance. This is a
so-called swell tone used for emphatic meaning: as the tone swells, the meaning
or emphasis increases. Other main types of intonation include high fall, low
fall, fall-rise, high rise, midlevel rise, low rise. They are variations of the
two basic types of intonation. Language learners should master the typical patterns
of standard falling and rising intonation before studying their variations.
Pitch is an important
component of accentuation, or prominence, both at the level of individual words
and at the level of longer utterances. Pitch is the degree of height of our
voice in speech. Normal speaking pitch is at midlevel. Intonation is formed by
certain pitch changes, characteristic of a given language, for example, falling
intonation is formed by pitch changes from high to low, and rising intonation
is formed by pitch changes from low to high. The pitch of the voice is
determined by the frequency with which the vocal cords vibrate., The frequency
of vibration of the vocal cords is in turn determined by their thickness their
length and their tension. The modal pitch of the voice, i. e. 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 a man's voice is generally lower than that of a woman or a
child. In addition to its modal pitch, every individual voice has a pitch range
which can be achieved by adjustments of the vocal cords. [14, 26] By tightening
the vocal cords, a person can raise the pitch of the voice (vocal pitch); by
loosening them, one can lower vocal pitch. There is also a natural variation in
pitch associated with the amount of air that is expended during speech. When
the airflow through the glottis is great, it causes the vocal cords to vibrate
quickly.
Sentence stress makes the utterance
understandable to the listener by making the important words in the sentence
stressed, clear and higher in pitch and by shortening and obscuring the
unstressed words. Sentence stress provides rhythm in connected speech. All
words have their own stress in isolation, but when they are connected into a
sentence, important changes take place: content words are stressed and function
words aren’t; thought groups (i. e. logically connected groups of words) are
singled out by pauses and intonation; the stressed syllables occur at regular
intervals and are usually higher in pitch than the unstressed syllables; the
unstressed syllables are blended into a stream of sounds between the stressed
syllables; emphatic stress may be used in the sentence to single out the most
important word; the last stressed word in the sentence gets the strongest
stress with the help of falling or rising intonation. Developing the ability to
hear, understand and reproduce sentence stress is the main prerequisite to
mastering English intonation. Rhythm (from Greek
<#"560843.files/image005.gif">.
There is a similar pattern in an information (WH)
question; these structures are identified by both the question word that starts
the sentence and by the intonation pattern.
An information question contrasts with a
“yes/no" question in which the intonation rises on the final syllable.
In a series, the first item (s) has rising
intonation and the last one has falling intonation.
Appendix 2
The three RP vowels [], [],. [] correspond to only two
vowels in GA - [a] and []. This combined with the articulatory
differences between RP {d] and GA [a] and a difference in vowel distribution in
many sets of words makes it very complicated. The following chart vividly shows
it:
|
RP
|
GA
|
Dad
|
[]
|
[]
|
dog
|
[]
|
[a]
|
path
|
[]
|
[]
|
dance
|
[]
|
[]
|
half
|
[]
|
[]
|
Appendix 3
Many differences involve
the pronunciation of individual words or groups of words. Here are some of
these:
|
RP
|
GA
|
Asia
|
[]
|
[]
|
cordial
|
[]
|
[]
|
either
|
[]
|
[]
|
leisure
|
[]
|
[]
|
lever
|
[]
|
schedule
|
[]
|
[]
|
shone
|
[]
|
[]
|
tomato
|
[]
|
[]
|
vase
|
[]
|
[]
|