Essay: Helping Learners Understand and Use Attitudinal Intonation

 
The teaching of pronunciation has an important purpose of enabling learners to communicate with clarity. Often teaching of suprasegmental features (intonation, rhythm) are overshadowed by segmental feature (vowels, consonants, word stress) of phonology. I think it is important that my learners become aware of other phonological features of spoken English because most people use intonation at subconscious level (Underhill 1994:75). Although intonation finds its place in grammar lesson it has never taken a prominent role in my teaching because as Underhill (1994:75) notes, ‘…we are not in control of a practical, workable and trustworthy system through which we can make intonation comprehensible’. My reading has made me interested in Attitudinal Intonation and I hope to learn more about the system and some techniques to teach it.
Analysis
Definition
Intonation is linguistic use of pitch in utterance (Tench 1996:1). Wells (2006:1) terms Intonation as the melody of speech and Bolinger (1968: 260) remarked that “intonation is a symptom of how we feel about what we say and how you feel when you say it.” We make say things like ‘it’s not what you say but the way you say it’- ‘the way you say’ is a kind of a guide to what Intonation is. Without Intonation the speech would be quite robotic. The falling and rising tones of our voice combine with grammar, discourse and paralinguistic features to bring out meanings in our speech.
e.g. I love that gorgeous dress!
Form:
1. Tone units and its parts
In the study of intonation, the following components are used to describe the tone patterns that occur in our speech
Utterance- Roach (1983:132) writes utterance is a continuous piece of speech beginning and ending with a clear pause Utterance is when we say something in a single ‘go’. Utterance can be single syllable such as yes or longer such as ‘I love that gorgeous dress hanging in the corner!”
Tone unit and tonic syllable- when an utterance can be ‘segmented’ or ‘chunked’ into smaller meaningful intonational units, they are termed as tone-units. Halliday (1967) refers to this as tonality. Each tone unit has its own and complete intonation.
Within a tone unit the syllable that carries the tone in a tone-unit is called a tonic-syllable (ts). Halliday (1967) refers to this as tonicity. One tone unit can only have one tone syllable. It is also referred to as the ‘nucleus’. This is subjective for every speaker. In this example the tone-unit only carries the tone syllable.
(ts)
“Gorgeous!”
The tone unit below has a tonic syllable which may be left out “tail”, or non-stressed syllables that immediately follows the tonic syllable:
(ts) (tail)
Gorgeous dress
Tone unit contains a pre-head, which can be left out too, made up of all the non-stressed syllables before but not including the onset syllable:
(pre-head) (ts) (tail)
What gorgeous dress!
The onset syllable (os) is the second most prominent syllable in the tone unit
(pre-head) (os) (ts) (tail)
I love that gorgeous dress!
Head
The head of a tone unit consists of all syllables from the onset syllable leading up to but not including the tonic syllable.
Tone- terms such as ‘high’ ‘low’ ‘heavy’ light’ to describe pitch movement of our voice is tone (Roach 1983). Halliday (1967) too refers to it by the same nomenclature. It is the contrasting pitch movement in each tone-unit.
Meaning
Pitch in the tonic syllable can move in one of many directions as various analysts suggest. Crystal (1969) identifies four basic tones (fall, rise-fall, rise, and fail-rise) while O’Connor and Arnold (1973) distinguish only two (rise and fall). Roach (1983:133) writes about five tones shown below
Rise ↗
Fall ↘
Rise + fall ↗↘
Fall + rise ↘↗
Zero (level or neutral) →
If one pronounces a single -word tone unit ‘Hello’ in a variety of tones,each would be different in meaning
Hello ↗ (Is anybody home?)
Hello ↘ (You are here. Welcome,)
Hello ↗↘ (You look nice)
Hello ↘↗ (What a surprise)
Hello → (not again!)
Roach (1983) writes tone is a certain pattern, where anybody can use any pattern but it does not imply that any pattern can fit in any context. For example, if we say
Thank you→ instead of Thank you↘
We stand to offend someone.
Intonation can also be analyzed by pitch range. Each speaker has their pitch range, the topmost and lowest pitch, beyond which they usually do not speak. In everyday life we prefer to use the bottom half of our pitch range and keep the higher half for expressing stronger emotions (Roach 1983). This is as evident very subjective and personal depending on various context such how warmly we greet a friend or a colleague.
Use
Crystal (1969) lists six functions of intonation while Roach (1983:146) presents four key functions: attitudinal, grammatical, accentual and discourse. It has to be said though that these functions overlap in real life speech. In my essay I will only talk about attitudinal intonation.
Attitudinal
This function of intonation refers to the mood or emotion or feeling of the speaker. A message can be given politely, angrily, warmly etc. But information can be given without any emotion, it can be said to be ‘neutral’ or ‘plain’. Expression of attitude is departure from neutral pattern of intonation (Kelly 2001).
Example Tone Meaning
A: I passed the driving test.
B: Did you?
Low –fall Did you
High fall Did you
High rise Did you
Fall rise Did you
Rise fall Did you
Lack of interest
Polite interest
Extreme surprise
Reservation
criticism
Wichmann (2000) distinguishes between ‘expessive’ intonation which show pure emotion e.g joy and ‘attitudinal’ intonation which combine with non-linguistic feature to show the speaker’s attitude towards the listener, to the topic or some external factor as shown below:
Expressive intonation
reflects and… Attitudinal intonation reflects
emotion propositional attitude
Opinion belief, knowledge about a person or issue speaker’s behaviour
He is (feeling)
Happy
Sad I am
critical
impressed
You are being
sarcastic
rude
Source: http://www.isca-speech.org/archive_open/archive_papers/speech_emotion/spem_143.pdf
Cauldwell (2013) has a very interesting take on attitudinal intonation. He says that there no links between tone choice and attitudes. He claims:
• the same meaning can be conveyed with different tones, e.g.
I wish I’d worn jeans! (a girl worried for wearing wrong attire for crowd surfing)
Where are we going to park? (a man worried about the car park space)
• the same tone convey different meanings
Where are we going to park? (Worried)
Kaz will have his mobile phone. (Confident)
• meanings are confined in the context of interaction
In a context of office really uttered by a teacher in response to finding out that his students has been making silly excuses for not completing HW means disbelief, but in another context of students in classroom discover that their teacher is absent from the school for a day means delight when said in rising tone.
• tones co-occur with meanings, they do not cause them to be present. He argues that in a similar context tone represent similar meaning.
Roach (1983) writes there are no set rules and that intonation is not the only way to express attitudes. A speaker may use paralinguistic features such as loudness, tempo, voice-effects (sighing, humming). Gestures to can express a lot as do facial expression. Finally, a speaker may also use swear words to show their anger.
Issues
My experience of teaching in a monolingual situation especially Indian learners has made me aware of some of the problems that my learners face while Intonation.
1. Especially at low language levels the learners cannot chunk the utterance into tone units. Indian languages such as Hindi or Bengali have SOV syntax so they pause incorrectly in English. Another reason for this is connected speech is difficult for them to understand, so they cannot identify tone boundaries as Roach (1983) suggests in speech. For example, //‘I’d like // to go to the party’ // instead of //I’d like to //go to the party //
2. Indian learners have difficulty placing tonic syllable because Hindi does not have syllable stress. One can easily read and speak Hindi because what you read is what you pronounce. So it is difficult for them to identify strong or weak stress. They say ‘I’d love to go to the party’ instead of ‘ I’d love to // go to the party’
3. Many learners even at B2 are sceptical about the significance of conveying emotions in English. It is difficult for them to realise that intonation carries wealth of meaning. This makes the teachers reluctant to teach intonation in class.
4. Indian learners have issues with interpreting attitudes or conveying attitude due to L1 interference because Hindi has different and less varied pattern than English. The falling tone in ‘I don’t want to talk about this anymore’ is interpreted as end of conversation but it just be the attitude of the speaker towards the particular topic.
5. Another problem that Indians face is that they might sound rude when they use their native falling tone for suggestion unlike the rising tone in English. E.g coffee
6. There are a lot of learners from Tibet who have Sino-Tibetan dialect as their L1 who study in my classes. Many Tibetan language or dialects are tonal. These learners have issues in using the linguistic pitch in speech because they are familiar with lexical pitch. They usually have difficulties in recognising attitude or expressing attitude in English.
7. Intonation is difficult to identify. Even experienced transcribers have difficult time with it (Brazil 1994 in Lane 2010:91) because one tone unit can be said in many different ways. For example,
Really (disbelief)
Really (delight)
8. It is quite difficult to hear intonations in connected speech when speaking in a natural voice. The tones are subtle and there are not a lot of long pauses neither is the tempo of the speech slow to accommodate the L2 learners needs.
9. Attitudinal Intonation is not strongly featured in course book in English. The listening exercises focus on phoneme, sometimes on connected speech but not enough on intonation-neither general nor attitudinal.
Approaches
1. Aim: Awareness raising and practicing attitudinal intonation for B2.
Procedure: ss order dialogues of an one-act play in order from Inside Out Upper Intermediate Resource Pack Ex. 12 A (appendix) Each student gets 7 dialogues
They answer a few gist questions.
Order the script and record themselves on mobile phones.
Ss match the dialogue with emotions
Ss mark the tonic syllable.
Ss predict the tone with the emotion mark it.
Ss get feedback from tape and tape script.
Ss act out the play for other ss in the classroom
Ss compare their original recording with the last performance.
Evaluation: This task practice stress and intonation with the learners. It is enjoyable because they need to work out the script. Then they think of emotions and finally act it out in front of their class. The recording also helps them to identify issues in their speech. (issues 1,2,3)
2. Aim: To raise awareness of tonic unit. B1 and above.
Procedure: learners get a copy of Barak Obama’s Victory speech 2008 (appendix).
Learners mark tone units individually first. They read their speech to their partner and decide which sounds more ‘natural’.
They listen to the speech and compare their work with the tape.
Learners discuss importance of content words and how structural language supports the content words before marking the pitch movement.
Evaluation: This activity helps the learners to work in their own space and figure out the tone unit. This is also useful since they read their speeches to other. This is also appreciated since loud reading is not often practised in the class. This gives them a sense that the teacher is listening to them. This activity also practices the stress and tonic syllable. (issue 4)
3. Aim: to raise awareness of final intonation. A1 and above
Procedure: learners work in pairs. They mark the final tones on single-word dialogue
They perform for their class and then discuss which pair had a successful conversation (appendix).
Woman: Kolkata
Man: Yes. You
Woman: Kolkata
Man: Water
Evaluation: this is an enjoyable activity. This focuses their attention to the fact that with pitch movement alone it is possible to lend meaning to dialogue has very few words. It highlights the importance of the final tones in English. (issue 8)
Aim: to raise awareness of different intonation pattern.
Procedure: ss listen to two dialogues. A) robotic voice and B) natural speech.
Ss listen to identify natural speech
Ss look at the tape script and as they listen they mark the pitch such as
Ss look at the answer script.
Ss hum the dialogues and use gestures along with it
Ss say the dialogue in natural speech
Evaluation: This is an activity which provides a lot of support to the learners in terms of arrow head, gestures and humming to notice intonation patterns. It also provides a model for them to fall back on. (issues 5,6 and 9)
Aim: to identify intonation by using contexts. B1 and above.
Procedure: ss listen to a number of dialogues and they identify similar contexts in each dialogue.
Ss the emotions in the dialogue
Ss check their answer
Ss mark the pitch to voice and listen again for confirmation
Ss reflect on contexts and corresponding emotions that are conveyed.
Context office
Boss: where were you yesterday, John?
John: err…at the hospital. My dog was sick
Boss: Really
Context school
Boss: where were you yesterday, John?
John: err…in the doctor’s chamber. I was sick.
Boss: Oh, Really
What is common in both the dialogues?
What is the similarity between the boss and the teacher?
What tone do they use to show that they do not believe John?
Evaluation: this activity makes learners focus on meanings in the context. It helps learners realise that similar context may produce similar attitudes and therefore similar tones may carry similar meanings.
Aim: to raise consciousness of falling tone. B1 and above
Procedure: ss get dialogues with a few nonsense words.
Ss listen to the tape and mark the pitch.
Evaluation: This helps learners realise the pitch without them focussing n words (issue 4 & 5)
Conclusion
This was a very useful exercise because this gave me an opportunity to research on the topic and think of practical solution for real life issues.
(Word count without appendix: 2476)
Bibliography
Bolinger, D. 1968. Aspects of Language. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Cauldwell Richard. 2013. Tones, Attitudinal meanings and Context. https://www.academia.edu/568609/Tones_attitudinal_meanings_and_context
Retrieved on 27.07.2016
Crystal, D, 1969. Prosodic Systems and Intonation in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Halliday, M. A. K. 1967. Intonation and Grammar in British English. The Hague: Mouton.
Kelly, Gerald (2001) How to Teach Pronunciation. Pearson PTR Interactive
Lane, Linda. 2010. Tips for Teaching Pronunciation. Pearson.
O’Connor, J.D. & G. K Arnold. 1973. Intonation of Colloquial English. London: Longman.
Roach, P. 1983. English Phonetics and Phonology: A Practical Coursebook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tench, Paul 1996. Intonation Systems of English. Continuum
Underhill, A. 1994. Sound Foundations: Living Phonology. Oxford: Heinemann.
Wells, J.C. 2006. English Intonation: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press
Wichmann, Anne. 2000. http://www.isca-speech.org/archive_open/archive_papers/speech_emotion/spem_143.pdf retrieved on 22.07.2016