Intonation refers to the pitch of the voice. In tonal languages like Chinese, changing the tone can completely alter the meaning of a word, whereas in intonational languages substituting tones does not change dictionary meanings. Intonation serves several functions, including expressing emotions and attitudes, producing prominence in syllables, helping listeners recognize grammar and syntax, and signaling new versus given information for the listener in discourse.

1. Intonation: Definition and
Functions
Roach, P. Chapter 15

2. Intonation
The pitch of voice plays the most important part.
Utterance
Continuous piece of speech beginning and ending
with a clear pause

3. Tone Language
The tone can determine the meaning of a word,
changing one tone to another can completely
change the meaning (eg. Chinese)
Intonational Languages
Substituting one tone for another does not
cause a change in the dictionary meaning,
tones have other purposes and functions.

4. Functions of Intonation
 Attitudinal function: intonation enables us to
express emotions and attitudes as we speak.
(O’Connor and Arnold)
 Accentual function: Intonation helps to produce
the effect of prominence in syllables
 Grammatical function: The listener is better able
to recogniz the grammar and syntactic structure
of what is being said by using the information
contained in the intonation (yes/no questions, wh
questions, etc)

5.  Discourse function: Looking at the act of
speaking in a broader way, we can see that
intonation can signal for the listener what is to
be taken as ‘new’ information and what is
already ‘given’