A Brief Analysis of Phonetics and Phonology.docVIP

A Brief Analysis of Phonetics and Phonology 　　Intonation is one important kind of linguistic prosody. What intonation is and what it does？ According to Ten （1996）， he gives us the clear definition： intonation is the linguistic use of pitch in utterances； intonation refers to the rise and fall of the pitch of the voice in spoken language. Thus， we know that in linguistics intonation is the variation of pitch when speaking. 　　Many languages use pitch syntactically to convey the speakers’ meanings， such languages are called intonation languages. This essay will focus on discussing the relative advantages and disadvantages of systems of notion for intonation of both Roach （2000） and Brazil （1980）. Compare and evaluate them theoretically. 　　2. Description of the system of intonation by Roach （2000） 　　Roach （2000） makes clear that there are level tone and moving tone in one-syllable utterance. However， level tone does not sound natural； it is very common to move tones for English speakers. Falling tone refers to one that descends from a higher to a lower pitch； rising tone is a movement from a lower pitch to a higher one. As Roach （2000） points out the function of intonation： how speakers want the utterance to be heard by hearers decides what speakers choose their tones. There are three tones mentioned here： Level， Falling and Rising. Though the tones of the words ‘yes’ and ‘no’ are different， the meaning of them is not different. English， however， is not a tone language. There are other more complex tones： fall-rise which the pitch descends and rises again and rise-fall which the pitch rises and descends again. Speakers use both highest pitch of a top level and lower pitch of a bottom level that does not go below. Natural speech makes intonation appear within the lower part of the speaker抯 pitch range， but extra pitch height expresses strong feelings. 　　There are five functions of English tones. Firstly， rise tone means inviting interlocutor to continue the con