EBONYI JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE
EJLLS Publication
EJLLS| Title: | Intonation in Overall Utterance and Discourse Interpretation |
| Author(s): | Rophina Chinyere ONUORAH |
| Abstract: | Language and Communication constitute the essential fulcrum on which this paper rests. The various aspects of language make it function as the ultimate communication tool for human beings. Communication in turn can be described as the appropriate use of language to facilitate effective interaction between people. Proper use of intonation in a language contributes to successful communication in the language. The view is that intonational miscues can cause breakdowns in communication between native and non- native speakers and between non-native speakers interacting with each other. Intonation, through its various elements like pitch, loudness, prominence and duration perform various functions. The intonation choices made by speakers carry linguistic information. Intonation is a vital contributor to the prosodic composition of a whole discourse and a means by which grammar is pronounced in spoken discourse. It exposes the relationship between one utterance and the other and that between the utterance and the discourse as a whole. Communication in English as a second language is difficult without proper knowledge and understanding of the intonation pattern. Speakers of English as a second language are ignorant about the English tune patterns and so the semantic suggestions of the tunes are minimally realized or are lost entirely. No wonder the difference between the language of the native speaker and that of the second language user. Therefore, examining intonation in the interpretation of meaning, this paper looks at the roles of intonation in the interpretation of syntactic, semantic and discourse phenomena and finds out that intonation is not additional but essential to the composition of texts. No language can be adequately and properly acquired apart from its intonation. Lack of adequate knowledge of the intonation pattern of English is responsible for low level of competence in the language as a second language. |
| Keywords: | intonation, overall, interpretation, utterance, discourse |
