GROUP WORK I 1. What are the prosodic features of the English Language? The prosodic features of the English language are phonetic characteristics which affect segments. There are two levels of prosodic features; the first level, which implies length, loudness and pitch, affects individual segments; and these elements contribute to the second level (rhythm, prominence and intonation), which affects words in context. 2. How can we define intonation? Intonation is the variation (patterns of rises and falls) which takes place in the pitch of the voice in connected speech, so as to convey linguistic information. 3. What does the concept ‘pitch’ refers to? Why is it important for defining intonation? Pitch is one of the major auditory features of musical tones along with duration, loudness and timbre. It refers to the rate of vibrations of the vocal folds, which ranges in a scale from low to high depending on the speech sound produced and the intention of the speaker. Pitch is important for defining intonation because the differences of pitch are linguistically significant only if the speaker has control over it. Pitch must be contrastive and perceptible, thus allowing the listener to be more interested in those changes in pitch which produce changes in meaning. 4. Why do we say English is an intonational language? English is said to be an intonational language because the tone, the main suprasegmental contrastive unit, affects the pragmatical as well as the linguistical meanings of the tone units. As opposed tone languages, in which the tone affects the lexical meaning, i.e., words. 5. Describe the form of English intonation. The form of intonation is given by prominence, tone units and tones. Prominence is the characteristic of a syllable to be more noticeable than others. In a tone unit, there may be more than one prominent syllable; but it is the last prominent syllable the one in which the main tone starts. This is called the nucleus. Tone unit is the phonological unit set up to handle the structure of pitch patterns. Tone is an identifiable movement or level of pitch that is used in a linguistically contrastive way. According to the Discourse Analysis Approach, English has a system of five tones: *Falling *Risefalling *Rising *Fallrising *Level 6. What are the functions of English intonation? Provide examples.
The functions of English intonation are the following: * The attitudinal function is the manifestation of attitudes and emotions. E.g. when expressing shock or surprise, seriousness or sarcasm, etc Example: The sentence “I’m listening now” may reflect that the speaker is being ironic, interested in what is going on in the conversation, or even angry. Everything depends on the context of situation and the relationship between the speakers. * The grammatical function: Intonation is used to distinguish clause types, such as questions or statements; and to disambiguate various grammatically ambiguous structures. This is done mainly by means of tone. Example: Wh questions take a falling tone, while yes/no questions take a rising tone. * The focusing function: Intonation helps to show what information in an utterance is new and what is already known. This is done by the choice of tone and tonicity. Example: _ Do you ‘like ‘cats? _ I like ‘all animals. (The word “animals” is not accented because it is already implied from the previous question where the word “cat” is used) * The discourse function: Intonation signals how the sequences of clauses and sentences go together in a spoken discourse, to contrast or cohere. Example: When reading a paragraph, a new topic is signaled by the use of a high key, whereas the end of the topic is signaled with a low key. * The psychological function: Intonation helps us organize speech into units that are easy to perceive, memorize and perform. Example: The tendency of dividing telephone numbers into rhythmical chunks. * The indexical function: Intonation may act as a marker of personal or social identity. Example: The differences that there exist between the speech of preachers, the one of street vendors, etc 7. Why does P. Roach say that discourse function is the most comprehensive one? Discourse function is said to be the most comprehensive one because the categories of discourse correlate with the metafunctions of language which depend on the context of situation, i.e., language depends on the physical setting, the social status and the activities performed by the speaker. Thus, most other functions of intonation seem to be submitted, contained in the discourse function. Agüero, Ricardo Villa, Gabriela