12 Functions of Intonation

A Attitudinal function of intonation

▪ Intonation is used for expressing attitudes and feelings.
▪ Elements of intonation used for expressing attitudes and feelings:
- Linguistic elements:
+ Sequential: pre-head, heads, tonic syllables and tails - pauses - tone-
unit boundaries
+ Prosodic: width of pitch range - key loudness - speed - voice quality
- Paralinguistic elements:
+ Body language
+ Vocal effects
▪ Attitudes and feelings expressed by the main tones:

a. Fall
Finality, definiteness: That is the end of the news.
Stop talking.

b. Rise
General question: Can you help me?
Listening: Red, brown, yellow, and blue.
“more to follow”: I phoned them straight away (and they
agreed to come)
Encouraging: It won’t hurt.

c. Fall-rise
Uncertainty, doubt: You may be right.
It’s impossible.
Requesting: Can I buy it?

d. Rise-fall You were first.

Surprised, being impressed: All of them.

65
B Accentual function of intonation
▪ Intonation is used for indicating the placement of the stress.
▪ Element of intonation is used for indicating the placement of stress: the location of
the tonic syllable.
- General rule: The tonic syllable tends to occur on the last lexical words in the
tone-unit.
e.g. I want to know where he’s traveling to.
- Exceptions: Any syllable may become the tonic syllable if the speaker considers
it as important.
e.g. I don’t want to know where he’s traveling from, I want to know
where he’s traveling to.
(“from” and “to” are considered important because the speaker is
contrasting them.)
e.g. It was very boring.
(“very” is considered important because the speaker wants to
emphasize it.)

C Grammatical function of intonation

▪ Intonation is used for indicating the grammatical and syntactic structure of an
utterance (e.g. the boundaries between phrases, clauses, sentences, ...)
▪ Elements of intonation used for indicating the grammatical and syntactic structure:
- The placement of the tone-unit boundaries
+ It clarifies ambiguous sentences.
e.g. Those who sold quickly // made a profit.
e.g. Those who sold // quickly made a profit.
+ It indicates grammatical structures.
e.g. I won’t have any tea // I don’t like it. (the tone-unit boundary is
used for indicating the boundaries of two sentences.)
- The choice of tone on tonic syllable: It indicates if the utterance is a statement
or a question.
e.g. The price is going up. (the falling tone indicates the utterance is a
statement.)
e.g. The price is going up. (the rising tone indicates the utterance is a question.)

66
D Discourse function of intonation
▪ Intonation is used to make the interaction between two or more speakers become
clear.
▪ Elements of discourse indicated by intonation.
- Attention focusing
e.g. She went to Scotland. (the speaker indicates to the listener that the
interesting information is “Scotland”)
I’ve got to take the dog to the vet. (the speaker indicates to the listener that
the attention should be focused on “vet” because it is less predictable than
“dog”.)
- Intonational subordination: To indicate to the listener that a particular tone-
unit is not important, the speaker usually:
+ drops to a lower key
+ increases speed
+ narrows the range of pitch
+ speaks less loudly.
e.g. As I expect you’ve heard // they’re only admitting emergency cases.
(the first tone-unit is of comparatively importance; the second is
consequently of greater importance)
e.g. Since the last time we met // when we had that huge dinner // I’ve
been on a diet.
(the first tone-units present information which is relevant to what the
speaker is saying, but which is not something new and unknown to the
listener. The final tone-unit, however, does present new information.
Writers on discourse intonation have proposed that the falling tone
indicates new information while rising (including falling-rising) tone
indicate shared or given information.

E Regulation of conversational behavior:

▪ The speaker may use intonation to indicate what he is doing in speaking (challenging,
encouraging, advising, ...)
▪ He can indicate what response he expects from the listener (e.g. the rising tone in a
question tag indicate a request for information while a falling tone indicate a request
for agreement.)

67
▪ He can also use intonation to regulate turn-taking (e.g. to indicate that he has finished
speaking expects another person speak.)

68