Understanding Intonation: Functions and Timing in Speech

Understanding Intonation in Speech

Stress-timed Rhythm: In stress-timed languages, the time between stressed syllables is roughly equal. Unstressed words are often reduced in both quality and quantity.

Syllable-timed Rhythm: In syllable-timed languages, each syllable takes approximately the same amount of time. Vowel quality remains consistent across both accented and unaccented syllables.

Functions of Intonation

Attitudinal Function

Intonation expresses attitudes and emotions, such as shock, pleasure, anger, interest, boredom, seriousness, or sarcasm. This is primarily conveyed through tone.

Grammatical Function

Intonation helps identify grammatical structures, similar to punctuation in writing. It marks the beginning and end of grammatical units (demarcative function) and distinguishes clause types (syntactic function). Tone is the main tool for this.

Focusing Function

Intonation highlights new information and de-emphasizes known information. It brings certain parts of a message into focus through tonicity and accent placement.

Discourse Function

Intonation signals how clauses and sentences connect in spoken discourse, indicating contrast or coherence. It also manages turn-taking in conversations.

Psychological Function

Intonation helps organize speech into units that are easier to perceive, memorize, and perform.

Indexical Function

Intonation can act as a marker of personal or social identity, contributing to how different groups of people sound.

Lexical vs. Structural Items

Lexical Items: Words with semantic meaning (nouns, adverbs, verbs, adjectives) are typically accented.

Structural Items: Words that are semantically empty (pronouns, auxiliaries, modal verbs, prepositions, articles) are often deaccented.