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3. INTONATION AS A QUALITY OF LANGUAGE.

The learners of English language tend to think that using “magical words“ such as please, can/could, may/might, would (e.g. in the phrase would you mind...?), thank you etc. are sufficient enough to sound polite. English learners usually forget that language does not consist of mere words and that there is something “behind“ that makes us seem polite, fairspoken, and mannerable. Spolsky [1,41] characterises politeness as recognition of others´ people rights in a certain social situation and we add that we can express it by the means of lexis, gestures, mimics and, last but not least, intonation. Certainly, when talking about intonation we have to take into account also other suprasegmental features besides intonation but we have decided to deal primarily with intonation and the way it can change

the meaning of a discourse.

It is obvious that the most significant part in intonation is played by pitch

[6,89] which can be desribed in terms of high and low referring to the end points of the pitch scale. It would also be perfectly reasonable to think of pitch as ranging instead from light to heavy, for instance, from left to right, and people who have difficulty in hearing intonation patterns are generally only having difficulty in relating what they hear. However, the range of intonation is extensive – when people speak their intonation often touches notes both higher and lower than they can sing. The range is usually wider in the declamatory style od speech than in conversation. Intonation bears relevant information which is not carried by any other means and therefore has several significant functions in interaction with other interlocutors. Antipova et al. [2, 256] state four main functions of intonation:

1) Sentence/utterance forming function or we could say grammatical function is important because intonation becomes important part of grammatical realisation of an utterance. Antipova et al. [2, 107] set the example of a simple sentence showing necessity of unambiguity with plain communicative goal without distinguishing in pitch and stress. So the following sentence (utterance) can be taken for a statement, a question, an exclamation, or an implication of one´s attitude depending on intonation:

He´s passed his exam. – a (pure) statement

He´s passed his exam? – a question

He´s passed his exam? – a question as an expression of surprise /it is unbelievable that he has passed his exam because he had not been studying a lot)

He´s passed his exam. – an exclamation

He´s passed his exam. – a statement suggesting that he must know someting, he may not be so lazy and now he deserves to take a rest after all.

2) Sentence-delimiting function helps to recogise the end of a sentence/utterance by means of pauses of different length together with an emphasis on the most prominent word/part of an utterance. This is nowadays called also accentual function. Look at the following example sentence: When danger threatens your children call the police. Two different sorts of intonation change the semantics of the whole sentence. Compare case a) and case b).

a) When danger threatens your children call the police

b) When danger threatens your children call the police.1

3) Distinctive function of intonation is obvious from the fact that communicatively different types of sentences/utterences are distinguished by intonation alone: for instance the following sentence can express a polite request

a) or a categoric order

b) depending on its intonation:

a) a rising tone – Wait here!

b) a falling tone – Wait here!

This function may be also named discourse function because this one looks at the act of speaking in a broader way in a sence that intonation can signal the listener what is to be taken as new information and what is already given; it may indicate a contrast, convey to the listener what kind of response is expected and so forth.

[3, 56]

By means of intonation various ranges of meaning can be seen uttering such a simple monosyllabic word as yes:

(a) yes – meaning: That is so.

(b) yes (but starting from the higher point of pitch) – meaning: Of course it is so.

(c) yes – meaning: Most certainly.

(d) yes – meaning: Is it really so?

(e) yes (but lower than in case d) – meaning: Yes, I understand what you have said. /

(f) yes – meaning: It may be so.

[3, 151]

4) Attitudinal function of intonation expresses the mood and emotions of a speaker, their attitude to the certain situation and also to the listener or other interlocutor. This function is expressed only by intonation as well.

A single sentence can be pronounced in a number of different ways depending on intonation of the utterance. For instance, What a beautiful day! may be interpreted in the following ways:

a) What a beautiful day! Simple fall pattern of intonation – meaning: when said

perfunctorily;

b) What a beautiful day! Rising intonation – meaning: when said enthusiastically;

c) What a beautiful day! Rising-fall intonation – meaning: when said sarcastically.

However, intonation can create differences in meaning that go further beyond attitudinal information. The sentence I didn´t get the job because of my husband. can be understood from two points of view depending on intonation.

1. The sentence I didn´t get the job because of my husband. pronounced with the falling intonation means that the speaker did not get te job because her husband messed things up.

2. The same sentence I didn´t get the job because of my husband. pronounced with the rising intonation at the end of the utterance means that the speaker did get the job but her husband could not claim any credit for the achievement [4, 25].

Besides we should also bear in mind the conversational maxims. The success of a conversation depends upon the various speakers' approach to the interaction. The way in which people try to make conversations work is sometimes called a co-operative principle. This can be explained by four underlying rules or maxims. (They are also named Grice's maxims, after the language philosopher, H.P. Grice.) They are the maxims of quality, quantity, relevance and manner.

a) Quality – speakers should tell the truth. They should not say what they think is false, or make statements for which they lack evidence.

b) Quantity – a contribution should be as informative as is required for the conversation to proceed. It should be neither too little, nor too much. (It is not clear how one can decide what quantity of information satisfies the maxim in a given case.)

c) Relevance – speakers' contributions should relate clearly to the purpose of the exchange.

d) Manner – speakers' contributions should be perspicuous: clear, orderly and brief, avoiding obscurity and ambiguity.

There are at least two definitions for intonation, Allen says that "intonation may be a quality of language that features each rhythm and melody" and is "produced by tonal height and depth alongside stress, volume and ranging lengths of pause". during this definition, intonation is the rise and fall of the pitch in speaking. The broad read of intonation is widespread, as intonation is commonly accustomed talk over with the approach somebody says one thing. In English, the approach one thing is claimed includes not solely pitch movement however additionally length, intensity, and a bunch of different factors, like voice quality.[1, 97]

Intonation during this definition involves the uses of pitch that operate at the

discourse level and may be outlined in terms of distinct linguistic classes (e.g., syllables that area unit accented vs. people who aren't accented, rising vs. falling final pitch. [6, 19]

The slim definition is followed during this article, and discussion is restricted to two necessary parts of intonation delineated in virtually all textbooks: (a) the first accent or sentence stress and (b) final pitch movement during a phrase or sentence. the primary development is delineated by the accent on the word see in Example one, during which the verb is a lot of noticeable, or salient, than all different words within the sentence.[1, 195]

The which means of Associate in Nursing English vocalization, i.e. the data it conveys to a perceiver, derives not solely from its dynamical sound pattern and therefore the contrastive, accentual prominences already noted, however additionally from associated. variations of pitch. Such rises and falls in pitch level, or patterns of intonation, have two main functions[4, 78].

In thus far as a perceiver interprets properly those components of Associate in Nursing vocalization -upon that the speaker desires to concentrate attention, or is conscious of the speaker's angle to him, or makes judgments upon the temperament of the speaker, the pattern of intonation used could also be aforementioned to represent a linguistic system which- encompasses a communicative operate at intervals a specific community. There looks little question that intonation in its accentual operate and therein non -accentual operate involved with the excellence of sentence sorts, will represent a linguistic reality of this. Since, however, we tend to typically misinterpret the emotional angle as sent by intonation, it should be aforementioned that non-accentual intonation patterns of this type area unit less utterly systematized, or that such linguistic systems area unit a lot of varied and applicable to smaller communities (regional or social) than synchronic linguistics systems, in order that a faulty judgment of emotional attitudes sent by intonation cues could derive from Associate in Nursing interpretation of those cues in terms of our own, different, intonation usage in showing such attitudes (cf. the interpretative changes required on the synchronic linguistics level between- speakers of 2 differing types of English. [2,37]