English Intonation

Every language has its own intonation, or speech melody. Intonation helps you to recognize the language that you hear in the same way as the melody of a song helps you to recognize the song that you hear. If you change the melody of a song, it will be difficult for your listener to recognize and understand the song you are singing. The same is true in reference to intonation: if you speak English with Russian intonation, your listener will have a problem understanding what you are saying.

English intonation is a complicated and varied phenomenon. There are dialectal and regional differences in intonation; for example, there are quite a few differences between British and American intonation. Intonation may sound differently depending on whether the speakers have high or low voices, speak fast or slowly, loudly or quietly, energetically, emotionally, neutrally, or listlessly. Men and women may have their own differences and preferences in intonation. For the purpose of studying, this variety may be described in several intonation patterns characteristic of English speech.

In general, linguists distinguish several types of English intonation. Falling intonation and rising intonation are the two basic types used in different types of sentences. These types of intonation are described in Falling Intonation and Rising Intonation. You can listen to them in Listening for Falling and Rising Intonation (AmE) and Listening for Intonation in Questions and Answers (AmE) in the section Phonetics.

Language learners should master typical patterns of standard falling and rising intonation before studying other types of intonation. (Various types of intonation are described in Intonation and Tones in the section Phonetics.)

English intonation is based on several key components, such as pitch, sentence stress, and rhythm.

Pitch is the degree of height of our voice in speech, that is, how high or how low the voice goes in speech. Intonation is formed by certain pitch changes characteristic of a given language. Normal pitch in English speech is at mid level (AmE), with a fall or a rise at the end of a sentence.

Sentence stress makes the utterance understandable to the listener by making the important words in the sentence stressed, clear and higher in pitch and by shortening and obscuring the unstressed words.

Sentence stress provides rhythm in connected speech. All words have their own stress in isolation, but when they are connected into a sentence, important changes take place: content words are stressed, and function words aren't; sense groups (i.e., logically connected groups of words) are singled out by pauses and intonation; the stressed syllables occur at regular intervals and are usually higher in pitch than the unstressed syllables; the unstressed syllables are blended into a stream of sounds between the stressed syllables; emphatic stress may be used in the sentence to single out the most important word; the last stressed word in the sentence gets the strongest stress with the help of a fall or a rise.

Developing the ability to hear, understand, and reproduce sentence stress is the main prerequisite to mastering English intonation. (See Sentence Stress and Rhythm in the section Phonetics.)

Intonation performs several important functions in English. The first function is uniting separate words into sentences in oral speech. The second function of intonation is distinguishing between types of sentences (i.e., statements, questions, commands, requests, exclamatory sentences). Also, intonation allows us to express various emotions, for example, finality, confidence, interest, surprise, doubt, joy, pain, irony, etc.

It is important to understand that intonation patterns have their own meaning. One and the same word or phrase pronounced with different types of intonation will convey different meanings and will be understood differently. For example: No. – No? – No! Change of standard patterns of intonation also has meaning. For example, rising intonation makes a command more polite, more like a request.

English intonation is very different from Russian intonation. Both languages use falling and rising intonation, but they are not the same in English and Russian. It's very important not to bring Russian intonation into English because intonation patterns from Russian may convey a different meaning in English and cause misunderstanding and even produce an unfavorable impression of you.

It is necessary to study English intonation together with your study of grammar and vocabulary as soon as you begin studying English, because it will be difficult to get rid of the Russian accent later on. The best way to study English intonation is by listening and repeating. Marking stress, pauses, falling intonation, rising intonation, and other phonetic phenomena in the written copy of the recording that you are listening to will help you to understand and memorize intonation patterns.

It is also very useful to record your reading of the text transcript and after that to compare your result with the listening material that you are studying. The next step may be watching a film in English and listening for the intonation patterns that you are studying and beginning to use.

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