The Intonation of American English

The Intonation of American English
Author: Kenneth Lee Pike
Publisher: Praeger
Total Pages: 224
Release: 1979
Genre: Humor
ISBN:

This study explains the structure of the English intonation system in relation to the structural systems of stress, pause, and rhythm.

Pronouncing American English

Pronouncing American English
Author: Gertrude F. Orion
Publisher: Heinle & Heinle Publishers
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1998
Genre: English language
ISBN: 9780838463345

This second edition provides extensive activities to help college-bound students develop clear speech and appropriate intonation. -- Vowels, consonants, stress, and intonation -- Recognition and production activities -- Paired communicative practice -- Sounds in isolation, sentences, dialogues, and rhymes

English Intonation PB and Audio CD

English Intonation PB and Audio CD
Author: J. C. Wells
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2006-08-31
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780521683807

Intonation - the rise and fall of pitch in our voices - plays a crucial role in how we express meaning. This accessible introduction shows students how to recognize and reproduce the intonation patterns of English, providing clear explanations of what they mean and how they are used. It looks in particular at three key functions of intonation - to express our attitude, to structure our messages to one another, and to focus attention on particular parts of what we are saying. An invaluable guide to how English intonation works, it is complete with extensive exercises, drills and practice material, encouraging students to produce and understand the intonation patterns for themselves. The accompanying CD contains a wealth of spoken examples, clearly demonstrating English intonation in context. Drawing on the perspectives of both language teaching and linguistics, this textbook will be welcomed by both learners of English, and beginning undergraduates in phonetics and linguistics.

The Intonation Patterns of American English

The Intonation Patterns of American English
Author: Lorna D. Sikorski
Publisher:
Total Pages: 115
Release: 2014
Genre:
ISBN: 9781883574260

Intonation: Perhaps the most important issue for you to work on! No other program we know of tackles this key element of true fluency in American English so practically. Here are more than 100+ pages of varied exercises to help you control of the musical aspects of American English ¿ the pitch and stress. This series covers: word lists for the eight major word patterns, basic falling and rising sentence rules, unique word reduction guidelines and drills for emphatic intonation.

Intonation and Its Uses

Intonation and Its Uses
Author: Dwight Bolinger
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 498
Release: 1989
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780804715355

This is the second and concluding volume of the author's magnum opus on intonation, the summation of over forty years of investigation and reflection. The first volume, Intonation and Its Parts: Melody in Spoken English, was published in 1986. Intonation, or speech melody, refers to the rise and fall of the pitch of the voice in speech; it has intimate ties to facial expression and bodily gesture, and conveys, underneath it all, emotions and attitudes. Most of the first volume was devoted to explaining the basic nature, variety, and untility of intonation, using, as in the present volume, hundreds of examples from everyday English speech, presented much in the manner of musical notation. The present volume looks at how intonation varies among speakers and societies in terms of age, sex and region; how it interacts with grammar; and how it has been invoked to explain certain questions of logic. The discussion of variation shows the degree to which intonation can be conventionalized and yet embody a universal core of feelings and attitudes, renewed with each generation. The remainder of the book demonstrates that no explanation of those apparently more arbitrary phenomena with which intonation interacts is adequate if it ignores that emotive undercurrent. In examining recent proposals for a defining relationship between intonation and grammar or logic, the author shows that such relationships are inferential and based on attitudinal meanings. For example, a given intonation does not mean 'factuality', but rather 'speaker confidence', from which factuality is inferred. In general, the author shows intonation operating independently in its own sphere, but as nevertheless indispensable to interpreting other more arbitrary parts of language.

American Accent Training

American Accent Training
Author: Ann Cook
Publisher: Barron's Educational Series, Incorporated
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2000
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780764173691

Directed to speakers of English as a second language, a multi-media guide to pronouncing American English uses a "pure-sound" approach to speaking to help imitate the fluid ways of American speech.

Intonation and Its Parts

Intonation and Its Parts
Author: Dwight Bolinger
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 442
Release: 1986
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780804712415

"It's not what she said, it's the way that she said it," is a complaint we have all heard (or made) some time or another. What does it refer to? It obviously relates to the various forms of wordless communication, but especially to the speaker's use of intonation—the rise and fall of the pitch of the voice—to convey sarcasm or resignation, anger or apprehension, or any of scores of other moods. In this summation of over forty years of investigation and reflection, the author analyzes the nature, variety and utility of intonation, using some 700 examples from everyday English speech. The work looks at both accent (pitch shift that points up individual words) and overall configurations (melodies that shape the meaning of whole sentences). It shows that most easily understood utterances employ one or another of a surprisingly small stock of basic melodies, and it shows both intonation and visible gesture to be parts of a larger complex that conveys grammatical as well as emotional information. Though it is one of the major divisions of the science of linguistics, intonation is of great interest to others outside of linguistics—to actors and lawyers who must use the voice to assert, to downplay, or to emote; to English teachers as an essential ingredient of idiomatic speech; to musicians for its many common elements in music theory; and to psychologists and anthropologists as a gauge of emotional tension and a clue to behavior.