1. Functions of intonation
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.
Many writers
have attempted to produce a list of distinct functions of intonation. Perhaps
the longest was that of W.R.Lee who proposed
ten. J.C. Wells and
E.Couper-Kuhlen both put
forward six functions. Wells's list is given below; the examples are not his:
1. 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
2. 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.
It is claimed that some languages, like Chickasaw and Kalaallisut, have the opposite pattern from English: rising for statements and falling with questions.
It is claimed that some languages, like Chickasaw and Kalaallisut, have the opposite pattern from English: rising for statements and falling with questions.
3. 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?"
4. 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"
5. 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"
6. 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.
2. Discourse phonology
A. Definition
of Discourse - any coherent succession of
sentences, spoken or (in most usage) written. Thus this entry in the dictionary
is an example of discourse; likewise a novel; likewise a speech by a politician
or a lecture to students; likewise an interview or any other series of speech
events in which successive sentences or utterances hang together. Often
equivalent to text.
Already the term ‘discourse’ is seen to be being used extremely diversely, both within linguistics (and its subdisciplines) and within other areas of the social sciences and humanities, particularly sociology (historical reasons for this are dealt with by Hodge, 1984). So while it will always be possible to find the term being used in other ways, a basic definition can be given as follows. ‘Discourse,’ as a mass noun only, and in its rather strict linguistic sense, refers to connected speech or writing occurring at suprasentential levels (at levels greater than the single sentence).
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