1.4 Intonation

Stress and intonation are both suprasegmental features. This means that they are characteristics of sounds or phonemes regarded as segments that can be analysed. These features definitely play an important role when giving meaning to our utterances. Different stress and rhythm for the same utterance can change its sense, but it is intonation that has more functions regarding meaning.

Intonation has to do with the pitch of the voice, that is, the voice going up (rising) or down (falling) when speaking. It also has to do with loudness (loud vs. soft), with length (fast vs. slow), and with pauses. Whenever we speak, we raise or lower our tone of voice, produce utterances at different speeds, and make pauses after certain chunks of sounds. This is because in this way we express a specific meaning or intention.

Therefore, we can use the same group of sounds to express different meanings by changing the rhythm, pitch and length of our utterances, and by pausing at different ‘points’ in your speech. There is a very well-known joke in Spanish that exemplifies this using the words cómo  and amaneciste. Do you know it?

As can be assumed, we use intonation and stress to convey different meanings in our daily lives, both consciously and unconsciously. These meanings, or information, have different functions, and according to Crystal (1987, as cited in Dalton & Seidlhofer, 1994), there are six functions for intonation, which gives meaning to everything we say.

Information taken from Dalton and Seidlhofer (1994, p. 49).