Although intonation is one of the suprasegmental elements that are vital as a means of conveying meaning, it has been the least investigated of all the sound aspects of English. Intonation has several complex tasks: it attaches to meaning the mood of the speakers, as well as his attitude towards the content of the utterance.
Intonation should be understood as a complex phenomenon. It is usually defined as "the rise and fall in the pitch of the voice, when we speak" (Amstrong, L.E. and Ward, I.C.: A Handbook of English Intonation,", Cambridge, 1967: 1) or "variations in the pitch of the musical tone produced by the vibrations of the vocal cords" (Jones, D.: An Outline of English Phonetics," Cambridge, 1964: 275). Crystal D. in "Prosodic Systems of English" (Cambridge: 1967) enlarges the sphere of intonation embracing elements like: tone, loudness, rhythmicality and tempo.
Every spoken language has a specific melody, a certain pitch of the voice is used when speaking. This sound aspect of the language referred to as intonation is a suprasegmental phenomenon / phoneme.
General characteristics
1.Intonation is significant because it can distinguish different meanings within the same sentence.
2.Intonation can also complete dictionary meanings of words with shades of meaning.
3.The use of the wrong tone gives a foreign accent or even causes understanding difficulties or embarrassment.
4.Intonation is systematic, i.e. there is a limited number of pitch patterns used to produce definite meanings.
5.Intonation is characteristic, i.e. the pitch patterns have a certain form and convey a certain effect in a particular language.
Functions of Intonation
Intonation makes it easier for a listener to understand what a speaker is trying to convey. The ways in which intonation does this are very complex, and many suggestions have been made for ways of isolating different functions. Among the most proposed ones are the following:
1.Attitudinal function = Intonation enables us to express emotions and attitudes as we speak, and this adds a special kind of "meaning" to spoken language.
2.Accentual function = Intonation can help to produce the effect of prominence on syllables that need to be perceived as stressed, thus expressing the speaker's attitude, at the moment of speaking, towards the situation in which he is placed.
3.Grammatical function = The listener is better able to recognise the grammar and syntactic structure of what is being said by using the information contained in the intonation: for example, the use of different tunes, different patterns for distinguishing statements, commands, questions, the placement of boundaries between phrases, clauses or sentences, the use of grammatical subordination.
4.Discourse (Semantic) function = Intonation can signal to the listener what is to be taken as "new" information and what is already "given", can suggest when the speaker is indicating some sort of contrast or link with material in another tone-unit, and in conversation, can convey to the listener what kind of response is expected. By this function, intonation can determine the communicative type
[1] Amstrong, L.E. & Ward, J.C. (1967). A Handbook of English Intonation. Cambridge: CUP.
[2] Chitoran, D. (1970). Limba engleza contemporana. Fonetica si fonologie. Bucuresti: Editura Didactica si Pedagogica.
[3] Crystal, D. (1967). Prosodic Systems of English. Cambridge: CUP.
[4] Connor, J.D.O'. (1994). Sounds English. A Pronunciation Practice Book. Essex: Longman.
[5] Jones, D. (1964). An Outline of English Phonetics. Cambridge: CUP.
[6] Jones, D. (1965). Everyman's English Pronouncing Dictionary. London & New York: J.M.Dent & Sons Ltd. & E.P. Dutton & Co. Inc.
[7] Makerenko, T. (1998). Contemporary English Phonetics. Cluj: editura Echinox.
[8] Roach, P. (1995). English Phonetics and Phonology. A Practical Course. Cambridge: CUP.
[9] Wells, J.C. (1995). Pronunciation Dictionary. Essex: Longman.
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