21.Intonation.Functions. Components.

Intonation- in linguistics, intonation is variation of spoken pitch that is not used to distinguish words; instead it is used for a range of functions such as indicating the attitudes and emotions of the speaker, signalling the difference between statements and questions, and between different types of question, focusing attention on important elements of the spoken message and also helping to regulate conversational interaction.

Although intonation is primarily a matter of pitch variation, it is important to be aware that functions attributed to intonation such as the expression of attitudes and emotions, or highlighting aspects of grammatical structure, almost always involve concomitant variation in other prosodic features.

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British descriptions of English intonation can be traced back to the 16th century. Early in the 20th century the dominant approach in the description of English and French intonation was based on a small number of basic "tunes" associated with intonation units: in a typical description, Tune 1 is falling, with final fall, while Tune 2 has a final rise. Phoneticians such as H.E. Palmer broke up the intonation of such units into smaller components, the most important of which was the nucleus, which corresponds to the main accented syllable of the intonation unit, usually in the last lexical word of the intonation unit. Each nucleus carries one of a small number of nuclear tones, usually including fall, rise, fall-rise, rise-fall, and possibly others. The nucleus may be preceded by a head containing stressed syllables preceding the nucleus, and a tail consisting of syllables following the nucleus within the tone unit. Unstressed syllables preceding the head (if present) or nucleus (if there is no head) constitute a pre-head. This approach was further developed by Halliday and by O'Connor and Arnold, though with considerable variation in terminology. This "Standard British" treatment of intonation in its present-day form is explained in detail by Wells and in a simplified version by Roach. Halliday saw the functions of intonation as depending on choices in three main variables: Tonality (division of speech into intonation units), Tonicity (the placement of the tonic syllable or nucleus) and Tone (choice of nuclear tone); these terms (sometimes referred to as "the three T's") have been used more recently.

Research by Crystal emphasized the importance of making generalizations about intonation based on authentic, unscripted speech, and the roles played by prosodic features such as tempo, pitch range, loudness and rhythmicality in communicative functions usually attributed to intonation.

The transcription of intonation in such approaches is normally incorporated into the line of text. A typical example would be:

We ˌlooked at the ↗sky | and ˈsaw the ↘clouds

in this example, the | mark indicates a division between intonation units.

An influential development in British studies of intonation has been Discourse Intonation, an offshoot of Discourse Analysis first put forward by David Brazil. This approach lays great emphasis on the communicative and informational use of intonation, pointing out its use for distinguishing between presenting new information and referring to old, shared information, as well as signalling the relative status of participants in a conversation (e.g teacher-pupil, or doctor-patient) and helping to regulate conversational turn-taking. The description of intonation in this approach owes much to Halliday. Intonation is analysed purely in terms of pitch movements and "key" and makes little reference to the other prosodic features usually thought to play a part in conversational interaction.

Functions of Intonation

All vocal languages use pitch pragmatically in intonation — for instance for emphasis, to convey surprise or irony, or to pose a question. Tonal languages such as Chinese and Hausa use intonation in addition to using pitch for distinguishing words.

Many writers have attempted to produce a list of distinct functions of intonation. Perhaps the longest was that of W.R.Lee who proposed ten. J.C. Wells and E.Couper-Kuhlen) both put forward six functions. Wells's list is given below; the examples are not his:

attitudinal function (for expressing emotions and attitudes)

example: a fall from a high pitch on the 'mor' syllable of "good morning" suggests more excitement than a fall from a low pitch

grammatical function (to identify grammatical structure)

example: it is claimed that in English a falling pitch movement is associated with statements, but a rising pitch turns a statement into a yes–no question, as in He's going ↗home?. This use of intonation is more typical of American English than of British. It is claimed that some languages, like Chickasaw and Kalaallisut, have the opposite pattern from English: rising for statements and falling with questions.

focusing (to show what information in the utterance is new and what is already known)

example: in English I saw a ↘man in the garden answers "Whom did you see?" or "What happened?", while I ↘saw a man in the garden answers "Did you hear a man in the garden?"

discourse function (to show how clauses and sentences go together in spoken discourse)

example: subordinate clauses often have lower pitch, faster tempo and narrower pitch range than their main clause, as in the case of the material in brackets in "The Red Planet [as it's known] is fourth from the sun"

psychological function (to organize speech into units that are easy to perceive, memorize and perform)

example: the utterance "You can have it in red blue green yellow or ↘black" is more difficult to understand and remember than the same utterance divided into tone units as in "You can have it in ↗red | ↗blue | ↗green | ↗yellow | or ↘black"

indexical function (to act as a marker of personal or social identity)

example: group membership can be indicated by the use of intonation patterns adopted specifically by that group, such as street vendors or preachers. The so-called high rising terminal, where a statement ends with a high rising pitch movement, is said to be typical of younger speakers of English, and possibly to be more widely found among young female speakers.

Components.

English intonation is based on several key components, such as pitch, sentence stress, and rhythm.	Английская интонация основана на нескольких ключевых компонентах, таких как высота тона, ударение в предложении и ритм.
Pitch is the degree of height of our voice in speech, that is, how high or how low the voice goes in speech. Intonation is formed by certain pitch changes characteristic of a given language. Normal pitch in English speech is at mid level (AmE), with a fall or a rise at the end of a sentence.	Высота тона – это степень подъема нашего голоса в речи, то есть как высоко или как низко голос идет в речи. Интонация формируется путем определенных изменений высоты тона, характерных для данного языка. Обычная высота тона в английской речи – на среднем уровне (AmE), с падением или повышением в конце предложения.
Sentence stress makes the utterance understandable to the listener by making the important words in the sentence stressed, clear and higher in pitch and by shortening and obscuring the unstressed words.	Ударение в предложении делает высказывание понятным слушателю, делая важные слова ударными, отчетливыми и выше по тону и укорачивая и делая неотчетливыми неударные слова.
Sentence stress provides rhythm in connected speech. All words have their own stress in isolation, but when they are connected into a sentence, important changes take place: content words are stressed, and function words aren't; sense groups (i.e., logically connected groups of words) are singled out by pauses and intonation; the stressed syllables occur at regular intervals and are usually higher in pitch than the unstressed syllables; the unstressed syllables are blended into a stream of sounds between the stressed syllables; emphatic stress may be used in the sentence to single out the most important word; the last stressed word in the sentence gets the strongest stress with the help of a fall or a rise.	Ударение в предложении обеспечивает ритм в связной речи. Все слова по отдельности имеют свое собственное ударение, но когда они соединяются в предложение, происходят важные изменения: значимые слова имеют ударение, а служебные нет; смысловые группы (т.е. логически связанные между собой группы слов) выделяются паузами и интонацией; ударные слоги возникают через регулярные интервалы и обычно выше по тону, чем неударные слоги; неударные слоги сливаются в один поток звуков между ударными слогами; эмфатическое ударение может применяться в предложении для выделения наиболее важного слова; последний ударный слог в предложении получает самое сильное ударение с помощью падения или повышения.