THE DISCOURSE

THE ATTITUDINAL
FUNCTIONS Intonation signals how sequences of

of intonation
clauses and sentences go together in
The most obvious role of intonation is to
spoken discourse to contrast or cohere. It
express our attitudes and emotions. To show
functions like the division of written text into
sock or suprise, pleasure or anger. We do this
sentences and paragraphs.
by tone.

Intonation is the melody of

speech. we study how the
pitch of the voice raises
and falls. it also involves the
study of the rhyth, of
speech and the study of THE PSYCHOLOGICAL
THE GRAMMATICAL
how the interplayof Intonation helps us organize speech into units
We use intonation to mark the beginning and accented. stressed and that are easy to perceive, memorize and
end of grammatical units such as clauses and unstressed syllables perfom. We can repeat an arbitrary string of 3,
sentences and we do this by tonality. 4 or 5 numbers but not a string of 10 unless we
We also use it to distinguish clause types such functions as frameworks split them into 2 units of 5. This is why we need
as questions vs statements. We do this mainly onto which the intonation tonality.
by tone.
patterns are attached.

THE INDEXICAL
THE FOCUSING
Intonation may act as a marker of personal
Intonation helps to show what information in or social identity. What makes a mother
an utterance is new and what is already sound like a mother, lawyers sound like
known. We use use it to bring some parts into lawyers and painters sound like painters?
focus, to highlight or emphasize some part of Partly, their characteristic intonation.
the message instead of others. We do this by
tonicity and by the placement of accents.