The functional nature of the English intonation

Perhaps the best way to start on discussing functions of intonation is to ask ourselves what would be lost if we were to speak without intonation: you should try to imagine speech in which every syllable was said on the same level pitch, with no pauses and no changes in speed or loudness. This is the sort of speech that would be produced by a "mechanical speech" device that made sentences by putting together recordings of isolated words. To put it in the broadest possible terms, we can see that 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.

FUNCTIONS OF INTONATION

1. Constituting function- intonation carries a sentence

2. Delimiting function- intonation shows if something is finished or not (i.e. a falling nucleus in counting)

3. Accentual function- pitch gives prominence to a syllable

4. The function of showing meaning: grammatical or semantic meaning

5. Attitudinal function- intonation expresses an attitude of the speaker

L.V. Ščerba holds that the main function of intonation is to express the speaker's attitude towards reality - the modal function. V.V. Winogradow and M. Halliday point out the grammatical function of intonation. Prof. V.A. Artiomov

 

Prof. V.A. Vassilyev

 

 

O.I. Dikushina names the following functions of intonation:

1. It

2. It

3. It has

4. Intonation

Н.Д.Светозарова предлагает следующие функции:

* функция организации и членения речевого потока;

* функция парадигматического противопоставления единиц членения;

* функция выражения связи или отношений между единицами членения;

* функция выражения отношений между элементами интонационной единицы;

* функция выражения эмоциональных значений и оттенков.

However, we are going to discuss classification of functions proposed by Peter Roach:

1) Intonation enables

 

 

2) Intonation helps

 

 

3) The listener

 

4) Looking at the act of speaking in a broader way, we can see that 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. Such functions are examples of intonation's discourse function.

The attitudinal function has been given so much importance in past work on intonation; it is clear that it overlaps considerably with the discourse function. In the case of the other three functions, it will be argued that it is difficult to see how they could be treated as separate: for example, the placement of tonic stress is closely linked to the presentation of "new" information, while the question/statement distinction and the indication of contrast seem to be equally important in grammar and discourse. What seems to be common to accentual, grammatical and discourse functions is the indication, by means of intonation, of the relationship between some linguistic element and the context in which it occurs. The word used in linguistics for this type of relationship is syntagmatic, and we will refer to the accentual, grammatical and discourse functions as syntagmatic functions of intonation. The fact that they overlap with each other to a large degree is not so important if one does not insist on discovering several distinct functions.