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seminar papers in English, to participate in social conversations in English
and to feel more confident about one’s ability to speak and perform.
The speaker presents speech not as separate words, but as chunks of
utterances known as tone groups. Tone groups are the building blocks out of
which all spoken communication is constructed. The meaning to be conveyed
depends on the choice of the nucleus and the nature of pitch variations within
these tone groups. The overall pitch treatment of an utterance will carry a
significant component of indexical information. An increase in anxiety, anger
or physical discomfort might result in a gradual rise in the general pitch of
the voice. A hearer might, in a given situation, derive a great deal of informa-
tion of this kind from the variations that are superimposed on the segmental
composition of the utterance, (sentences with the same words, arranged in
the same order). Impersonation and similar devices can result in a speaker
deliberately adopting a pitch level or pitch range that is not his/her usual one
and the effect is part of the total ‘meaning’ of his/her present behaviour.
Intonation is a network of three systemic variables: tonality, tonicity,
and tone.
1. Tonality is the distribution into tone groups—the number and loca-
tion of the tone group boundaries. Tonality is concerned with division
of long utterances into smaller groups while speaking. We pause here
and there in the middle of an utterance. The stretch of speech between
any two pauses constitutes a tone group. Tone groups are also called,
sense groups or breath groups. Pauses separate these groups and they
can be marked by a vertical bar in writing.
For example:
// Hello, Mr John/ How are you?//
2. The number of tone groups in a sentence also sometimes changes the
meaning.
For example:
(a) // she dressed and fed the baby //
(b) // she dressed / and fed the baby //
3. In (a) it is the baby she dressed and fed, while in (b) she only fed the
baby after she dressed herself.
4. Tonicity is the location in each tone group of the pre-tonic and tonic
sections. The location of the tonic syllable within a tone group is
‘tonicity’. The tonic syllable is the syllable on which the speaker initi-
ates the pitch movement.
5. For example, in a sentence like
// ‘Put it on the ‘table //

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