What is intonation?
A
Intonation is the melody of speech. In studying intonation we study how the pitch of the voice rises and falls, and how speakers use this pitch variation to convey linguistic and pragmatic meaning. It also involves the study of the rhythm of speech, and (in English at any rate) the study of how the interplay of accented, stressed and unstressed syllables functions as framework onto which the intonation patterns are attached.
If we had no intonation, our speech would be - in the literal sense of the word - monotonous. Either it would remain one pitch throughout, or every utterance would employ exactly the same stereotyped tune at a all the times. But speakers do neither of those things: they make the pitch of their voice rise, fall, jump and swoop, in all sort of different ways. Even the most boring speaker has access to a considerable repertoire of tunes (intonation patterns) - though maybe some speakers are better than others at exploiting this. Lively speakers typically, make good use of the wide repertoire of possible intonation patterns that English offers.
This is true both for the broadcaster, lecturer, preacher, politician, or businessman, addressing a public audience and for the participant in an ordinary everyday conversation interchange or informal format.
B
The purpose of this book is to show how intonation works in English, and to describe a selection of the intonation patterns of English from the point of view of English language teaching (ELT). The emphasis is on points that should be useful for those teaching or learning of English as a non-native language. At the same time it will, I hope, enable native speakers of English to appreciate the functioning of English intonation.
Why is the study of English intonation useful for the student of English? The linguistic study of any language is of course academically valuable in itself. But for the learner of English there is also a very practical reason for making some attempt to acquire a command, both active and passive, of its intonation.
If they study pronunciation at all, learners of English usually concentrate on the segmental phonetics - the 'sound' of the language (known technically as the segments). It is indeed important to learn to recognize and reproduce the consonant sounds and vowel sounds of English and the differences between them. Every learner of English should be taught to make the th-sounds of thick and this, the vowel of nurse, and the differences in sound between leave and live, bet and bat. Most learners also learn about word stress. They know that happy is stressed on the first syllable, but regret on the second. But intonation (also know as prosody or suprasegmental) is mostly neglected. The teacher fails to teach it, and the learner fail to learn it. Like other elements of language, some gifted learners will pick it up more or less unconsciously; but many will not.
The problem is this: native speakers of English know that learners have difficulty with vowels and consonants. When interacting with someone who is not a native speaker of English, they make allowances for segmental errors, but they do not make allowances for errors of intonation. This is probably because they do not realize that intonation can be erroneous.
After all, almost any intonation pattern is possible in English; but different intonation patterns have different meanings. The difficulty is that the pattern the learner uses may not have the meaning he or she intends. Speakers of English assume that - when it comes to intonation - you mean what you say. This may not be the same as what you think you are saying.
Audio recording of selected examples from the text and exercises are provided on the accompanying CD. The icon 🎧 tells you which they are.
The intonation symbols used in this book are explained in the
Exercises
E1.1.1
Listen to the following sentences spoken (i) normally and (ii) strictly on a monotone (= the pitch of the voice stays level, not going up and not going down). Repeat them aloud in the same way.