Functions of intonation.

Attitudinal – intonation enables us to express emotions and attitudes as we speak, and this adds a special kind of “meaning” to spoken language.

The note “expressing emotions and attitude” is itself a more complex one than is generally realized. Firstly an emotion can be expressed involuntarily or voluntarily; if we say something in a “happy” way, this may be because I feel happy, or because I want to convey you the impression that I am happy. Secondly, an attitude that is expressed could be an attitude towards the listener (# if I say something in a “friendly” way), towards what is being said (# if I say something in a “skeptical” or “dubious” way) or to some external event or situation (# “regretful” or “disapproving”).

Accentual – intonation helps to produce the effect of prominence on syllables that need to be perceived as stressed, and in particular syllable marks out the word to which it belongs as the most important in the tone unit.

The location of the tonic syllable is of considerable importance. The most common position for this is on the last notional word (# noun, adjective, verb, adverb or numeral) of the tone-unit. For contrastive purposes, however, any word may become the tonic syllable. But it can either be placed earlier in the tone-unit if there is a word there with gre4ater importance to what is being said. This can quite often happen as a result of the last part of the tone-unit being already “given” (i.e. something which has already been mentioned or is completely predictable), for example:

# // Here’s the (book that you asked me to bring. // (The fact that you asked me to bring it is not new.)

Grammatical – the listener is better able to recognize the grammar and syntactic structure of what is being said by information contained in the intonation: for example, clauses or sentences, the difference between questions and statements and the use of grammatical subordination can be indicated.

The word “grammatical” tends to be used in a very loose sense in this context. It is usual to illustrate the grammatical function by inventing sentences which when written are ambiguous, and whose ambiguity can only be removed by using differences of intonation.

# a) // Those who 'sold Ú quick ly ê made a (prof it // (a profit was made by those who sold quickly)

b) // Those who Ú sold ê 'quickly 'made a (prof it // (a profit was quickly made by those who sold)

Discourse – intonation can signal to the listener what is to be taken as “new” information and what is already “given”, can suggest when the speaker is indicating some sort of contrast or link with material in another tone-unit and, in conversation, can convey to the listener what kind of response is expected.

# // Since the Ú last time we met | when we had that huge Ú din ner | I’ve been on a (di et// the first two tone-units present information which is known to the listener, and the final tone-unit, however, present new information. Falling tones indicate new information while rising tones indicate “shared” or “given” information.

ROLES AND STATUS OF SPEAKERS

1. Take a deep diaphragmatic breath on the count of 7. On the next count of 7 hold it, and on the next count of 7 release the air.

2. Take a deep diaphragmatic breath on the count of 7. Release the air on the count of 7. Take another deep breath on the count of 7 and release the air on the count of 5 proceed in the same way counting down to 1. At the count of one release the air with the sound “ha”.

3. Articulate the following tongue twister: “William wanders through Whamping Willows”. The vocal cords are not working. Try to articulate the sounds a bit stronger than you usually do.

4. Now whisper the tongue twister from the activity 3, and then say it aloud.

5. Take a deep and quick diaphragmatic breath on the count of 1. Release the air on the count of 7. Take another deep breath on the count of 3 and release the air on the count of 7. Proceed in the same way counting up to 7.

6. Take a deep diaphragmatic breath and count aloud from 1 to 7. Try to use all air you have in your lungs. Make sure that your vocal cords are relaxed. Check on it by putting your hand on your throat – the neck muscles should not be tensed.

7. Take a deep diaphragmatic breath and say the following “One by one they went away”. If you have some air left let it out freely. Make sure that your vocal cords are relaxed. Proceed in the same way adding one unit to the sentence “One by one and two by two they went away”, and so on up to “six by six…”

8. Do the same as in 7 but starting with the lowest voice you can make and picking its pitch up on each number. The last number should be said on the highest pitch of your voice. Try not to go beyond your natural voice.

9. Do the same as in 7 but starting from the highest pitch and going down to the lowest.

10. Do the same as in 7 but starting with whisper and increasing the volume to a very loud voice, and back from loud to whisper.

11. Say the tongue twister from the activity 3 five times each time increasing the volume of your voice on every other word.

12. Take a deep diaphragmatic breath and read the following poem. Start by taking a breath after each line. Increase the number of lines read at one breath until you read the whole poem at one breath. Try to control the output of the air and make sure that your vocal cords are relaxed.

Let me call you sweetheart, Keep the lovelight glowing

I'm in love with you. In your eyes so true.

Let me hear you whisper Let me call you sweetheart,

That you love me, too. I'm in love with you.

SOUNDS

VOWEL SOUNDS [ x ] – [ e ]

Practise the following pairs of words:

men – man letter – latter elephant – animal

head – had helping – happy episode - appetite

said – sad merry – married element - alibi

then – than mention – mansion editor - admiral

wreck – rack Emmy – Andy emphasis - amateur

Practise the following proverbs:

Better late than never.

So many men – so many minds.

All's well that ends well.