Intonation and Communication
Martha C. Pennington
Professor of Writing and Linguistics
The Unreality of Grammars
Traditional grammars, in relying on a written
language norm filtered through an ancient
language [Latin] and in privileging the sentence
as the essential unit of analysis, have described
language in terms of an abstract ideal rather than
as a central aspect of human behavior.
Pennington, M. C. (2002). Grammar and communication:
New directions in theory and practice. In Eli Hinkel and
Sandra Fotos (eds.), New Perspectives on Grammar
Teaching in Second Language Classrooms. Mahwah, New
Jersey and London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, p. 96.
Communication is a process of:
(i)
A speaker signaling intentions to
an addressee, and then
(ii)
The addressee making inferences
about what the speaker meant by
the signal.
Sperber, D., & Wilson, D. (1995). Relevance:
Communication and Cognition. 2nd edition.
Oxford: Blackwell.
Means of Communicating
Other Than Language
 Gestures
(e.g. pointing, waving, shrugged shoulders)
 Facial expressions
(e.g. smiling, frowning, quizzical look)
 Eye contact
(brief or sustained, and lack thereof)
 Physical distance
(from minimal separation to far apart)
AND…
 Bodily orientation
(e.g. directly facing or leaning
towards one or another participant)
 Type and amount of touching
(e.g. of a person’s arm while speaking)
 Other forms of physical contact
(e.g. intimate contact such as kissing),
which may preclude or take precedence
over linguistic expression
3 Methods of Signaling
Describing-as
We describe something as a fish when we
present the word fish.
Indicating
We indicate an individual fish when we point at it.
Demonstrating
We demonstrate the size of a fish when we hold
our hands so far apart.
Clark, Herbert H. (1996). Using Language.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 391.
Meaning by Contrast
Instead of thinking of meaning as a property
which is inherently attached to the word, we
can focus upon the way people use words—
and, indeed, other linguistic items—to create
oppositions, as in “friend not relative”, “friend
not merely acquaintance”, which are of
relevance to whatever communicative purpose
is presently being pursued.
Brazil, David (1995). A Grammar of Speech.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 35.
An Everyday Example
PAT
AND
MARTY
They live together and are going about
their normal Saturday routine.
Those 3 Little Words
I got it!
Some Meanings of Get
SUBJECT AS RECIPIENT
 I got a letter. (‘receive’)
 I got the flu. (‘catch’)
 I got sick. (‘became’)
 I got stung by a bee. (‘be’)
SUBJECT AS ACTOR
 I got my child from the daycare center. (‘fetch’)
 I got my baby some new blankets. (‘obtain’)
 I got dinner ready. (‘caused to happen’)
High Key Intonation
It narrows down the context of
assumptions to one contrasting
with all other possibilities.
Brazil, David (1997). The Communicative Value
of Intonation in English. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Intonation as a Signaling System
Informing (Informational) Function
Signaling informativeness: Salience/non-salience
(high pitch vs. non-high pitch)
Structuring (Syntactic) Function
Signaling boundaries: Completion/non-completion
(pitch fall vs. absence of fall)
Interactional (Participatory) Function
Signaling participation: Hearer involvement/noninvolvement (pitch rise vs. non-rise)
Functions of Intonation
 Chunking and structuring
information
 Managing speech production
and interaction
 Revealing the ongoing state of
knowledge construction and
control of discourse
Speakers construct their
utterances in relation to:
 their own purposes and intentions;
 their knowledge of communicative
context, including what the hearer
can be presumed to know; and
 their knowledge of contextual effects.
The communication is realized
by means of:
(i) the specific speaker’s selection of
(ii) tonal pattern together with
(iii) specific words and
(iv) their arrangement as exactly the
right language, no less and no more,
given (v) the specific context and
(vi) intended audience, to trigger the
intended interpretation.
Conclusions about Language
 Language is necessarily social and
must be referenced to the joint actions
of at least two people.
 Meaning does not inhere in a sentence
but is created in the interaction
between speaker and hearer.
Conclusions about Intonation
 The tonal properties of an utterance
are essential to the precise coding of
a message to be both efficient and
interpretable by a particular
audience on a particular occasion.
 The workings of intonation make a
very good case that a grammar
abstracted from real communicative
events and contexts is not merely
abstract but unreal and unworkable.