A Study on the Functions of English Intonation

1、 xxxx大学xx学院毕 业 论 文 （ 2009 届） 题 目 ： 专 业： 姓 名： 指导教师： 完成日期： 2013 年 4 月 30 日 liaoning normal university haihua college a study on the functions of english intonationa thesis submitted to the school of foreign languages in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of bachelor of artsby class

2、01grade 2009advisor： associate professorapril, 2013abstractenglish intonation studies the pitch variations in utterances and other paralinguistic features such as stress and pause, which are all features of english in use. these features of english intonation are an important way of verbal communica

3、tion, for they play a vital role in helping speakers' express true meanings and listeners understand what speakers want to convey. the changes of intonation can not only change the meaning of a sentence, but also facilitate the expressing of speakers' attitudes, feelings, emotions and moods

4、better. thus, participants of communication should know the importance of english intonation and learn to recognize the functions and meanings of different english intonations in order to achieve a highly successful and smooth communication. this paper discusses the attitudinal function, accentual f

5、unction, and discourse function of english intonation, which may display its crucial influence in the attitudinal, accentual, and discourse aspects concretely. by analysing speech act theory in english linguistics, the author of this paper gives enough examples and analyse them in order to make a ne

6、w generalization of the functions of english intonation. the whole paper is divided into four chapters. chapter one, as a starting point of the study, is a brief introduction to the theme of the paper. the feasibility and necessity of the study on the functions of english intonation are also pointed

7、 out in this part. chapter two mainly introduces the relevant terms and their concepts which can be usually seen in expressing english intonation. it also provides an analysis of the basic unit of english intonation and a general introduction to speech act theory, an english linguistic theory, which

8、 .paves the theoretical way for the following chapters. chapter three illustrates the attitudinal function, accentual function, and discourse function of english intonation in detail. plenty of examples are employed and analysed. chapter four is a conclusion of the whole thesis, which illustrates th

9、e primary role of english intonation in verbal communication and the practical significance of this research, and emphasizes the feasibility and necessity of the study on the functions of english intonation again. meanwhile, the limitations of the present paper and the direction of further research

10、are also pointed out in this chapter. key words: speech act theory, english intonation, function 摘 要英语语调研究主要涉及英语中音调的高低变化以及重音和停顿等其他超音段特征，是英语在使用中所体现的特征。这些语调特征是言语表达的重要方式，对说话人的表达和听话者的理解起着至关重要的作用。语调的变化不仅能引起句子意思的变化，还能更好地表达说话者的态度、感受和情绪。为了顺利实现成功的交流，交流的参与者都应该了解英语语调的重要性并且学会理解不同语调的功能和意义。本文主要运用了英语语言学理论中的言语行为理论重

11、新概括英语语调的一些功能，具体表现在情感态度的表达、重要信息的强调、以及在语篇中所体现的功能等多个层面，即表态功能、重音功能、及语篇功能。结合言语行为理论，作者举了一些例子并对例子进行分析，从而对英语语调的这些功能做了新的概括。本文共分为四个部分。第一部分引言简要介绍了关于文章的研究主题和定位以及研究目的，说明英语语调功能研究的可行性和必要性。第二部分主要介绍英语语调相关的术语及其概念，指出英语语调分析的基本单位、构成和特点以及研究中所用的相关语言学理论，为后面章节的分析做理论铺垫。第三部分具体阐述英语语调的表态功能、重音功能和语篇功能并就每一类功能下的具体体现方式举例加以分析。第四部分结语对

12、全文进行归纳和总结并揭示英语语调在话语交际中的主要作用以及此项研究的现实意义，再一次强调英语语调功能研究的可行性和必要性，同时指出该论文存在的不足和今后的研究方向。关键词：言语行为理论；英语语调；功能 contentsabstractichapter 1: introduction1chapter 2: basic knowledge of english intonation and theory for the study4 2.1 definition of intonation, tone and stress4 2.2 basic unit of english intonation

13、 analysis8 2.3 theory for the study10chapter 3: the functions of english intonation15 3.1 the attitudinal function of english intonation16 3.2 the accentual function of english intonation18 3.3 the discourse function of english intonation20chapter 4: conclusion24works cited27acknowledgements28a stud

14、y on the functions of english intonation chapter 1: introduction as we know, english is an intonation language, and intonation itself, which is a critical element in an oral communication, is considered to be the soul of an intonation language. no matter when we speak, what we say and what language

15、we use, we can't avoid using the intonation. it can indicate speakers' attitudes, reflect various emotional expression and convey a variety of speakers' real intentions. besides, it can also set up a social communicative context or background, and help people grasp the potential informat

16、ion or messages in an utterance or communication. in general, the intonation which helps speakers to transfer their real intentions or deliver information or messages effectively and precisely is always the signal of topic-shift or turning point of sentence meaning in an utterance. a complete master

17、y of the intonation of one language is the key to understanding speakers' real intentions in an oral communication. however, unfortunately, although english is the most widely used and studied language all over the world, the systematic study of its soulenglish intonationis normally ignored by l

18、arge numbers of efl (which is short for english as a foreign language) learners. for a very long time, they, the efl learners, simply regard english intonation as a syntactic sentence type. here take the rising tone in english intonation for example. when we use a rising tone in a sentence, most peo

19、ple prefer to think that it is only a way to change a declarative sentence into an interrogative, rather than think it may chapter 2: basic knowledge of english intonation and theory for the study this chapter is mainly concerned with the basic knowledge of english intonation such as the definition

20、of intonation, tone, stress and tone-unit, and related theoretical studyspeech act theory, which serves as a framework of the present study. 2.1 definition of intonation, tone and stress in oxford advanced learner's english-chinese dictionary (the 6th edition), intonation refers to "the ris

21、e and fall of the voice in speaking, especially as this affects the meaning of what is being said"(927-928). in general, intonation means different things to different people who are in different working areas. even in the linguistics itself, the term "intonation" may have been given

22、a variety of denotations which range from the very broad sense to the very narrow sense. "in the broad sense, it covers not only pitch, but also stress and pause phenomena on a supra-segmental level, while in the narrow sense, it is restricted to the non-lexical manifestation of melody in speec

23、h, which is generally known as the rise and fall of the pitch in spoken language" (唐, 6). intonation is the melody of speech. in studying intonation we study how the pitch of the voice rises and falls, and how speakers use this pitch variation to convey linguistic and pragmatic meaning. it also

24、 involves the study of the rhythm of speech, and the study of how the interplay of accented, stressed and unstressed syllable functions as a framework onto which the intonation patterns are attached (well, 1). intonation is a significant element of spoken english, and it is also one of the suprasegm

25、ental features which are phonemic features that appear above the level of the segments. intonation makes speech meaningful, so it plays an important role in the conveyance of meaning in nearly every language, especially in a language like english, and it also makes english sound really english. base

26、d on the various definitions of intonation, intonation in this present paper is mainly handled in the narrow sense. thus, actually, intonation is the combination of stress and pitch changes. as we all know, english intonation is very different from intonations of other languages and also there are d

27、ifferences existing in the range of national and regional accents. here the present author is going to deal with intonation in rp, which is short for received pronunciation. tone is a distinguishing feature of tone language. in oxford advanced learner's english-chinese dictionary (the 6th editio

28、n), there are many versions of definition on the term "tone" according to different contexts when this word is used. but now we shall only pay attention to the definition of tone when we meet it in linguistics. in linguistics, especially in phonetics, tone refers to "the pitch (=how h

29、igh or low a sound is) of a syllable in speaking" (1862). "tones are pitch variations, which are caused by the differing rates of vibration of the vocal cords. pitch variations can distinguish meaning just like phonemes; therefore, the tone is a suprasegmental feature. the meaning-distinct

30、ive function of the tone is especially important in what we call tone languages" (戴, 何, 30). "in tone language, tone is a feature of the lexicon, being described in terms of prescribed pitches for morphemes or word" (夏, 4). english has five basic tones, known as the falling tone, the

31、rising tone, the falling-rising tone, the rising-falling tone, and the level tone. the falling tone which descends from a higher pitch to a lower one and the rising tone which is a movement from a lower pitch to a higher one are two basic intonation patterns in english, and then, when they go togeth

32、er sometimes, they can make a falling-rising tone or a rising-falling tone. among the five basic tones, the falling tone, the rising tone and the falling-rising tone are frequently used by people. each of these tones has different functions, that is, they convey different meaning, attitudes or inten

33、tions to the hearer. generally speaking, the falling tone always indicates that what the speaker said is a straight-forward, matter-of-fact statement. it is regarded as more or less a sense of "neutrality" and it sends to the hearer a sense of "finality", while the rising tone co

34、nveys an impression that something more is to follow. the falling-rising tone is quite frequently seen in english. people use it very often because it has some rather special functions and it can express their feelings simply and exactly. among many other possibilities, it usually conveys messages o

35、f "limited agreement" or "response with reservations". but the rising-falling tone is normally used to convey quite strong feelings of surprise, approval or disapproval. the level tone can be certainly used in english, but it maybe used in s rather restricted context (on single-s

36、yllable utterances) for it always conveys a feeling of saying something boring, uninteresting, regular or routine. secondary, and zero. "the term 'primary stress' refers to the strong emphasis a speaker puts on the most important syllable of a particular word. secondary stress refers to

37、 a less strong emphasis on the next most important syllable. zero stress refers to any syllable that receives no stress, such syllables are called unstressed syllables" (王, 83, 2005). a primary stress is characterized by prominence which is achieved through the combination of factors such as lo

38、udness, length, pitch and quality, and the prominence of a secondary stress is weaker than that of the primary stress but stronger than that of the unstressed syllables, and the unstressed syllables can be defined by the absence of any prominence. on the contrary, sentence stress can be regarded as

39、part of intonation. "sentence stress refers to the relative force given to the components of a sentence" (戴, 何, 29). a word or some words which receive a strong accent in a sentence can be sentence stress. stress is so important to english that it can make people communicate with each othe

40、r well by using correct word and sentence stress in an utterance. 2.2 basic unit of english intonation analysis "for the purpose of analysing intonation, a unit generally greater in size than the syllable is needed, and this unit is called tone-unit" (roach, 144). other descriptions of ton

41、e-unit are tone group, intonation group, intonation contour, sense group, breath group, and so on. because of tone-unit, utterance in connected speech are usually divided into several small parts, and these small parts can make the long speech easier for the speaker to speak and the hearer to unders

42、tand. thus, tone unit is the basic unit of english intonation analysis. a tone-unit may contain only one syllable which is in the smallest form of a tone-unit, such as "yes" and "no". so in fact, it would be wrong to say that it always consists of more than one syllable which can

43、 be seen very often in english. when a tone-unit contains several syllables, some of them must be stressed and the others are unstressed. the stress syllables are far more important than the unstressed syllables. "the stressed syllable of the last prominent word is usually a marker of the highe

44、st importance and has the focus stress. on this syllable, there takes place a change of pitch, either an upward or downward movement, or a combination of the two" (王, 200, 1996). a complete tone-unit can be divided into four different parts, known as the pre-head, the head, the nucleus and the

45、tail. the pre-head is the intonation of the unstressed syllable before the head. it is composed of all the unstressed syllables in a tone-unit before the first stress syllable. the head is the intonation of the first full stressed syllable in a sentence. it is the stretch of an utterance extending f

46、rom the first full stressed syllable up to but not including the tonic syllable. however, if there is no accented syllable before the nucleus, there cannot be a head. the nucleus, which can be also called tonic syllable or nuclear syllable, is the intonation of which emphasizes the last stressed syl

47、lable of the whole sentence. nucleus is the most vital accented syllable in a tone-unit which can affect the meaning and function of the tone-unit in discourse by carrying a high degree of prominence or taking a major pitch change. it also carries the information focus of a tone-unit. the tail, if t

48、here is one, often happens between the tonic syllable and the end of the tone-unit. the tail which may contain one or more stressed or unstressed syllables is a part of a tone-unit following the nuclear syllable. it completes the list of tone-unit components. among these four components of a tone-un

49、it, only the nucleus, which is the most important element of a sentence, is necessary, obligatory and irreplaceable, while the pre-head, head and tail are optional and sometimes may be omitted. the nucleus must be still present even though the tone-unit is composed of a single syllable, such as &quo

50、t;yes", "no", "why", and so on. "if we use brackets to indicate optional components which may be present or may be absent, we can summarize tone-unit structure as follows: (pre-head) (head) nucleus (tail), or more briefly, as (ph) (h) n (t)" (roach, 147). the tone-

51、units have their own boundaries, which means that where one tone-unit ends and another tone-unit begins, or where a tone-unit begins or ends and a pause follows. it is quite hard to determine a clear boundary to the tone-units. since in simple and normal speeches, which speed is not too fast, the bo

52、undaries of the tone-units can be placed if there is a perceivable pitch-change or a slight pause after the nucleus. nevertheless, in analysing natural speech, it becomes very difficult to identify the boundaries only depending on the phonetics and phonology. in this case, one has to use the knowled

53、ge of grammar and semantics to decide where the boundaries of the tone-units are.2.3 theory for the study historically, a lot of linguists and scholars have made great contributions to the study of linguistics, especially in the range of pragmatics which refers to the study of how speakers of a lang

54、uage use sentences to achieve successful communication. subsequently, many concepts and theories are formed to standardize specific language usage as a result of their studies. among them, speech act theory, relevance theory, and context theory are the most popular ones which are mentioned widely by

55、 people. however, in this paper, only speech act theory is studied to support and explain some complicated but interesting language phenomena because of the complexity of the study. speech act theory, which is one of the fundamental theories in linguistics and pragmatics, is very significant for stu

56、dents to use in their research papers. it is first proposed by john langshaw austin, a well-known british linguist and philosopher of ordinary language, in the late 50's of the 20th century. austin's book how to do things with words (1962) has a great effect on linguistics, especially on pra

57、gmatics. later on, his ideas are spreaded, popularized and further evolved by an american philosopherjohn searle who is austin's student and also makes important contributions to this field. "speech act theory indicates an act of using language in specific circumstances with some objectives

58、 to be achieved. the basic view point is: any language communication states an intentional speech act and speech act is the minimal unit restrained by rules" (夏, 8-9). "it is a philosophical explanation of the nature of linguistic communication. it aims to answer the question 'what do

59、we do when using language?'" (戴, 何, 87-88). originally, austin classifies utterances into two types according to whether the utterances can be verified. one is called constatives which are chiefly statements or assertions that either state facts or describe states. thus, they are verifiable and quite easy to judge whether the sentences are true or false. while the other one i