Describing prosodic signs: forms of intonation

Some basic theses

1. Intonation is an independent information channel

                         +-+           +-+
                         | |           | |
                         |S|           |R|
       words             | |---------->| |
       prosody           | |---------->| |
       gesture, position | |---------->| |
                         | |<----------| |
                         | |<----------| |
                         | |<----------| |
                         |R|           |S|
                         | |           | |
                         +-+           +-+

   If there is a conflict of messages in different channels, double bind communication takes place.

2. Intonation is highly structured (Halliday's terminology):
   1. Tonality: division into intonation/tone groups
   2. Tonicity: placement of accents
   3. Tone: type of final pitch movement
3. The meaning of intonation is concerned with social relationships:
   1. Guiding the addressee (tonality, tonicity)
   2. Controlling conversational dynamics (incl. turn-taking)
   3. Establishing group identity (e.g. male/female/child pitch height; adaptation to other groups)

 
• Exercises