GROUP 3

DWI SEPTI YANTI RAZTU P E1D018033

FADIA CITRA SABRINA E1D018036
IDA AYU MADE WANDA A D E1D018045
MITA ARIANI E1D018061
 CHAPTER 4
DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND
PHONOLOGY
 4.1 INTRODUCTION
Under the heading of phonology in this chapter we shall tak
e a brief look at what has traditionally been thought of as 'p
ronunciation', but devote most of our attention to intonation.
This is partly because the most exciting developments in th
e analysis of discourse have been in intonation studies rath
er than at the segmental level (the study of phonemes and
their articulation) and partly because intonation teaching, w
here it has taken place, has proceeded on the basis of ass
umptions that are open to challenge from a discourse analy
st's viewpoint.
4.2 PRONUNCIATION
Traditional pronunciation teaching has found its str
ength in the ability of linguists to segment the soun
ds of language into discrete items called phoneme
s which, when used in the construction of words, p
roduce meaningful contrasts with other words.
Example The phonemes / p / and / b / in English gi
ve us contrasts such as pump and bump, pat and
bat, etc
• Seen from the viewpoint of connected stretches of n
aturally occurring discourse, the problem becomes m
ore complex. When words follow one another in spe
ech, phonemes may undergo considerable changes
• As G. Brown (1977: 57): 'every consonant and every
vowel will be affected by its neighboring consonants
and vowels and by the rhythmic structure in which it
occurs
• Brown lists many examples of such assimilations, a
nd of elisions (where sounds from the citation form a
re 'missed out' in connected speech: 'most men' will
be said without a / t / in natural, conversational spee
ch).
 4.3 RHYTHM
When we listen to a stretch of spoken English discourse, we often feel that there is a rhyt
hm or regularity to it, which gives it a characteristic soup id, different from other language
s ​and not always well-imitated by foreign learners. The impression of rhythm may arise o
ut of a feeling of alternation between strong and weak "beats' in various patterned recurr
ences

/--/--/--
Most of the people were visitors
--/--/--/--/
A friend of mine has bought a boat

Brown (1977) found such recurring patterns in her recordings of broadcast talk. But other
natural speech is often not as regular as this, nor will the patterns necessarily recur in the
same way at different times.
• Traditionally, rhythm has been considered an important
element in the teaching of spoken English. This is pro
bably due to two main factors.
• Firstly, there does seem to be rhythmicality in varying d
egrees in long stretches of speech, especially carefully
considered deliveries such as broadcast talks, fluent re
ading aloud, speeches and monologues, as well as so
me ordinary conversation.
• Secondly, the concept of English as a stress-timed lan
guage, deeply rooted in theoretical and applied linguisti
cs, has dominated approaches to the teaching of rhyth
m
4.4 WORD STRESS AND PROMINENCE
• Stress: refers to the degree of force used in produ
cing a syllable.

• Prominence: syllables which stand out in the flow

of talk, or duration, or pitch variation compared wit
h surrounding syllables (and our perception of this
phenomenon will usually be due to a variety of suc
h features), will be referred to as prominent syllabl
es.
The distinction between them is:
• word stress appears in the citation forms of the words (sometimes calle
d their isolate pronunciations).
• prominence given to syllables depends on the choice of the speaker to
make certain words salient.

JA'PANESE?
• 1 represents so-called primary stress, and 2 secondary stress
• but it is clear that prominence can occur differently on these two syllabl
es, or indeed not at all, depending on the speaker's choice as to where
the main stress (the "sentence stress", or "tonic") is placed in the uttera
nce.
(the main stresses are underlined)
1. ACtually, she's japaNESE
2. 2. a JApanese SHIP-owner's been KIDnapped
3. 3. i thought SHE was japanese, NOT HIM
4.5 THE PLACING OF PROMINENCE
When and why do speakers attach prominence to syllables and, so, to the wor
ds that contain those syllables in their utterances?
1. a CUP of TEA
2. 2. the THIRD of APril
3. 3. WHERE'S the BREADknife?

The non-prominent words (a, of, the) are, as it were, taken for granted; they do
not represent any choice from a list of alternatives: "a cup of tea" is not an alter
native to "a cup by / from tea" in most conceivable circumstances. But, equally,
"the breadknife" is not in any real sense a selection from my / your / a / Mrs Jon
e's breadknife in most situations, since the speaker assumes, or projects the a
ssumption that the missing knife is the one in normal use in the household and
that it does not need to be specially identified more than by the.
So, we can see from the examples that small, function-wor
ds are made non-prominent usually.

But there are also some exceptions:

1. Does the soup contain meat? (Customer or waiter in re
staurant)
2. 2. Sorry to ring you so late. (You telephone a friend at 1
1.30 pm)
3. 3. Will you accept a check? (at a car-hire office)
4.6 INTONATIONAL UNITS

Intonation: involves the occurrence of recurring

fall-rise patterns, each of which is used with a s
et of relatively consistent meanings, either on si
ngle words or on groups of words of varying len
gth (Cruttenden, 1997: 7).
• Many phonologists believe that it is possible to devide speech up i
nto small units in which each unit has at least one main, or nuclear
prominence.

• This prominence will be marked by some variation in pitch, either

predominantly rising or falling.

• The unit thus defined may then have other, non-nuclear, prominen
ces (usually just one), and other, non-prominent syllables.

• The nuclear prominence is the last prominence in the unit, and suc
h units are usually called tone units or tone groups.
• Tone groups often have a slight pause after them, and are clai
med to correspond most frequently in natural data with gramma
tical clauses.

• The tone group is central to the school of linguists who see into
nation as being concerned with the information structure of urre
rances.

• For Halliday, tone groups are informational units; the speaker d

ecides how to segment the information to be transmitted and e
ncodes each segment as a seperate tone group.

• The nuclear prominence (or tonic) projects what the speaker de

cides is new (in the sense of 'newsworthy ") in the tone group.
1./she WORKS for the GOvernment / - the newsworth
y focus was on government

2. / i KNOW the FACE / but i CAN't put a NAME to it /

- on face and name

3./WHERE's that FRIEND of yours / - on friend

THANK YOU