Practical work 1 1) The prosodic features of English language are those of Pitch, loudness and length. These combine together to make up the rhythm of speech. Stress: It’s the combination of loudness, pitch and duration. Tone: It’s another prosodic characteristic realized mainly by differences in the pitch of the voice ( e.g. high level, mid level, low level, rising and falling ) 2) According to Peter Roach no definition is completely satisfactory, but only attempt at a definition must recognize that the pitch of the voice plays the most important part. According to Wells Intonation is the melody of speech. In studying intonation we study how the pitch of the voice rises and falls; and how speakers use the pitch variation to convey linguistic or pragmatic maening. It also involves the study of the rhythm of speech; and ( in English ) the study of how the interplay of accented ( stressed ) and unstressed syllables fuctions as a framework onto which intonation patterns are attached. Ladd ( 1996 ) defines intonation as one of the suprasegmental features ( of language ) to convey sentence level pragmatic meaning in a linguistically structure way. 3) Pitch can for all practical purposes be regarded as directly related to the frequency of the vibration ( of the vocal folds ) or anything else ( piano ). An auditory sensation which places sounds on a scale from low to high. It’s the level of the voice. Pitch is used in many languages as an essential component of a word so that a change of pitch may cause a change in meaning. In most languages, pitch plays a central role in intonation. Ladd ( 1996 ) says that the syllables that stand out in a given phrase are called pitch. Cruttendem says that our perception the pitch of a speech sound depends directly upon the frequency of vibration of the vocal folds. Are all pitch variations linguistically significant? ( Question added by Analia )
We have established that for pitch differences to be linguistically significant, it is a necessary condition that they should be under the speaker’s control. There is another necesary condition and that is that a pitch differece must be Perceptible. For linguistic significant aspects of speech we must always be learning for Contrast. 4) Peter Roach says that English is called an intonation language because the Unit Tones given in a certain phrase let convey the meaning or utterance. (Utterance: it’s the act of expressing somethintg in words). Intonation carries a communicative value. And languages are to communicate. Tha is to say, to understand what we are listening to and to be understood. Tone language Tone →Lexical meaning→word Intonation language Tone→Intonational meaning→Tone unit 5) These linguistic intonation systems are known as Tonality, Tonicity and Tone. Tonality: The first matter a speaker has to decide is the division of the spoken material into chunks. There will be Intonation Pattern associated with each chunk. These chunks are known as intonation phrases or IPs. The symbols │and ││ represent the boundaries between IPs. However, the speaker doesn’t inevitable have to follow the rule of an IP for each clause. There are many cases where different kinds of chunking are possible. ( Tonality or chunking ) Tonicity: Speakers use intonation to highlight some words as important for the meaning they wish to convey. These are the words on which the speaker focus the hearer’s attention to highlight an important word we accent it, more precisely we accent its stressed syllable. 6) Fuctions of English intonation: we have two characteristics related i one item:
▪ Focus attention: New information Vs old or implied information and accented fuction that involves tonicity and pragmatic. E.g. / John will come to the party with ME / ( contrast ). / JOHN will come to the party with me / ( emphasis ). / John will COME to the party with me / ( I don’t know if he’s coming back ). ▪ Syntactic fuction: It’s related to Tone and grammatical function related to Tonality. E.g. ( Demostrative ) / The students / read the chapters easily / passed the exam / / The students who read the chapters / easily passed the exam / / They are COMing / ↑ Interrogative / They are COMing / ↓ Afirmative ▪ Discourse function: It’s related to cohesion and context. ▪ Attitudinal fuction: It expresses emotions and attitudes . ▪ Communicative function. 7) Intonation is systematic because it follows specified reles; and significant because the intonation gives utterance to the speaker’s thoughts.Variation in meaning accordint to the senjtence type, the description of meaning of nuclear tones is devided according to the following characteristics: a) Major declaratives; b) minor declaratives; c) Wh- interrogatives, d) Yes/ no interrogatives; e) Tag interrogatives; f) Imperatives; e) Exclamatives; h) Social formulation. The most difficult area of intonation ( for foreign learners ) concerns the attitudinal uses of intonation. Prymary accents: the pronunciation of singlr words and of longer intonation phrases are both described in terms of an obligatory primary accent and an optional secondary accent. Primary accent: single words. There is stated that the final pitch accent in a word or intonational phrase is usually the most prominent, while a pitch accent on an earlier syllable is referred to a secondary accent. Nuclear tones: a) falling nucler tones; b) Rising nuclear tones ↓ Highest pitch to lower pitch
↓ From low to high
c) Folling- rising nuclear tones: The fall and rise may be confined within one syllable ( ┘); d) Rising-falling nuclear tones (┐); e) Level nuclear tones: The most common level is mid level, which is very ( common ) frequent tone in intonational phrases which are non-final in a sentence. In conclusion, intonation carries meaning, highlights important information while backgrounding less crucial information, and plays a significant role inn conversational management. 8) Sentence linguistic data Vs Discourse analysis data ▪ Isolated sentences to be unified
▪ Any stretch of language felt
▪ Grammatically well-formed
▪ Achieving meaning
▪ Without context
▪ In context
▪ Invented or idealized
▪ Observed
According to Peter Roach, the only really efficient way to learn to use the intonation of a language is the way a child acquires the intonation of its first language; and training referred to the above should help the adult of English acqire English intonation in a similar ( though much slower ) way-through listening and talking to Enghish native speakers. It is perhaps discouraging thing to say, but learners of English who are not able at least to listen regularly to colloquial English Are not likely to learn English intonation, although they may learn very good pronunciation of the segments and use stress correctly. We may take into account that Peter Roach didn’t have the chance to watch and listen to all the american films and also British films that we can watch and listen in our daily life on tv.