2.Functions of intonation.

1. Syntactic function, or phrasing. It is the division of utterances into meaningful units called intonation groups.

E.g. Those who sold quickly /made profit.//

Those who sold /quickly made profit.// (pitch, pause, final syllable lengthening, changes in the tempo)

2. Accentual function. This function depends on the position of primary and secondary stresses (accents) in the intonation group. Intonation highlights the most important information in the utterance, which helps to distinguish new and old, topic and comment, theme and rheme. The distinctions is obviously a cognitive one, expressed in the intonation form. In most cases the last accented syllable (and, therefore, the word) is most prominent in English, so this location (the final position) is viewed as the neutral, “unmarked” case.

E.g. 1. This is Mark ↓Darcy.//Mark’s a top ↓barrister.//

In actual speech, however, the theme/rheme positions may be reversed (“marked” case). Still the higher accent goes to the rheme, the lower tio the theme. The rheme usu. has a falling or a rising-falling pitch pattern regardless of its position in the utterance.

E.g. 2. Harrington’s is the ↓THIRD one.

The ↓THIRD one is Harrington’s.

The rheme here acquires special prominence because of its unusual position. Many authors call this special prominence emphasis.

3. Attitudinal (expressive, or emotional) function.

E.g. ↓John’s come. ↓↓John’s come!

D. Crystal: there are 9 ways of saying “yes”. D. Crystal: attitudes conveyed by English tones:

Low fall – the most neutral tone. Unemotional statement of fact.

High fall – emotionally involved.

Mid fall – routine, uncommitted comment; detached and unexcited. (Cf. Russian)

4. Semantic function.

E.g. 1. She doesn’t lend her books to anybody. (with a low fall) – не дает книги никому.

She doesn’t lend her books to anybody. (with a fall-rise) – не дает книги случайным людям.

E.g. 2.

5. Discourse function. By means of intonation the speaker can :

• Refer to shared knowledge of the speakers in the conversational interaction;

• focus the listener's attention on important aspects of the message;

• indicate to others that they have finished speaking, that another person is expected to speak, that a particular type of response is required.

E.g. Shared information: an allusion at “The Grasshopper and the Cricket” by John Keats: I am like the ↓grasshopper/ who sang all ↓↑summer.//

Have you heard from Mark ↓↑Darcy? – Good-buy, Mum. (the daughter refuses to discuss the theme).

6. Stylistic function. Intonation can characterize a style of oral speech (public speech, news reading, telephone conversation, etc)

7. Distinguishing communicative types of utterances (order-request, statement-question, etc)

3.Prosodic settings of the English and Russian languages.

Before discussing language-specific differences between English and Russian intonation, we have to say that there are features shared by all lgs in the world, they are called universal. The 1^st simple universal truth is that all lgs (both tone and stress lgs) HAVE intonation. Other universal properties are:

-Intonation grouping (the division of speech into intonation groups)

-Nucleus placement (the most prominent word is normally placed at the end of the intonation group)

-Nuclear tones: a terminal fall in declaratives (38 out of 57 considered lgs - Dwight Bolinger, 1978 ) vs terminal rise in yes-no questions (36 out of 57 considered lgs - Dwight Bolinger, 1978), high fall in exclamations and imperatives, fall or fall-rise in Wh-questions.

-Declination (as a general rule, pitch is lower at the end of an intonation group than at the beginning)

-intonation of emotions (speakers of different lgs find no difficulty in identifying emotions when listening to foreigners)

-Key, or register (in different cultures key is used to signal social status, social role and regionality – Shevchencko 2003)

-Intonation acquisition: acquisition of intonation precedes the acquisition of the phonological

system as a whole. There are well established stages in the baby's intonation performance development. They are:

• 1-3 months — the first cries are demanding rise-falls;

• 3 months — 1 year — babbling period where level, wavy and rising into­nations of content are practised;

• 1 year 9 months — one-word period with the fall + rising intonations of deictics and requests;

• 1 year 9 months + 3 months — two-word period, high, mid and low registers differentiated.

The child's acquisition of basic pitch patterns for intonation produc­tion and perception is normally completed by the age of nine. Much literature has been written on the so-called "baby-talk" — the speech of adults to babies. There is considerable unanimity in the samples from different cultures: high pitch, lip rounding and palatalization are the most salient features.

However, every language is characterized by its own prosodic peculiarities, in other words every language has its own prosodic settings. Prosodic mistakes not only make speech sound foreign, but cause misunderstanding and thus failure of communication.

e.g. The conventional intonation pat­tern of Russian direct address, when used in the English setting, sounds like a peremptory command, which is rather rude:

—Annie!(with a high fall). Give it to me, please!

On the other hand, the American English direct address which was meant to be friendly sounds implicatory to a Russian ear, like a warning:

— Annie (with a low rise).

There are similar cases of thanks misinterpreted by foreigners: British English thanks pronounced by men sounded curt and lacking enthusiasm which in case of generous gift-giving was very impolite: — Thanks (with a low fall). The British, in their turn, comment on the Russian profuse thanks which they find very embarrassing (as if the Russians didn't expect to be given the favour!). As a result, there was a failure to create empathy by a friendly gesture of gift-giving though neither party actually meant to sound ungrateful.