VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES
----------
PHAN THỊ NGỌC ANH
ENGLISH INTONATION: ERRORS MADE BY THIRD YEAR
STUDENTS AT ENGLISH DEPARTMENT,
CHU VAN AN UNIVERSITY
MA Combined Programmed Thesis
Hanoi, 2012
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES
----------
PHAN THỊ NGỌC ANH
ENGLISH INTONATION: ERRORS MADE BY THIRD YEAR
STUDENTS AT ENGLISH DEPARTMENT,
CHU VAN AN UNIVERSITY
(Ngữ Điệu Tiếng Anh: Những Lỗi Thường Gặp
Của Sinh Viên Năm Thứ Ba, Khoa Tiếng Anh, Trường Đại Học Chu Văn An)
MA Combined Programmed Thesis
Field
: English Linguistics
Code
: 60.22.15
Supervisor : Assoc. Prof. Dr. VÕ ĐẠI QUANG
Hanoi, 2012
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................... i
ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................. ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................ iii
LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................ viii
LIST OF CHARTS ................................................................................................. ix
ABBREVIATION AND SYMBOLS IN THE STUDY ..........................................x
PART A. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................1
1. Rationale of the study..............................................................................................1
2. Scope of the study ...................................................................................................2
3. Aims and objectives of the study ............................................................................2
3.1 Aims of the study ..................................................................................................2
3.2 Objectives of the study ..........................................................................................2
4. Research Questions .................................................................................................2
5. Significance of the study .........................................................................................3
6. Design of the study..................................................................................................3
PART B. DEVELOPMENT .....................................................................................5
CHAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................5
1.1 Previous works related to the topic of the study ...................................................5
1.2 English intonation .................................................................................................6
1.2.1 Definitions of intonation ...............................................................................6
1.2.2 Systems of intonation ...................................................................................7
1.2.2.1 Tonality ............................................................................................8
1.2.2.2 Tonicity ............................................................................................8
1.2.2.3 Tone ..................................................................................................9
1.2.3 Structure of intonation ..................................................................................9
1.2.4 Functions of intonation ...............................................................................11
1.2.4.1 Informative function .......................................................................11
1.2.4.2 Communicative function ................................................................12
iv
1.2.4.3 Attitudinal function ........................................................................13
1.2.4.4 Grammatical function .....................................................................13
1.2.5 Intonation-related errors .............................................................................14
1.3 English Tonality ..................................................................................................15
1.3.1 Nature of tonality ........................................................................................15
1.3.2 Identification of tonality .............................................................................15
1.3.2.1 Neutral tonality ...............................................................................15
1.3.2.2 Marked tonality ..............................................................................16
1.3.3 Components of tonality ..............................................................................26
1.4 Error and error analysis .......................................................................................31
1.4.1 Definition of error .......................................................................................31
1.4.2 Error Analysis .............................................................................................31
1.4.2.1 Identification of errors ....................................................................32
1.4.2.2 Description of errors .......................................................................32
1.4.2.3 Explanation of errors (Tracing errors to their sources) ..................32
1.4.2.3.1 Interlingual Errors ..........................................................33
1.4.2.3.2 Intralingual Errors ..........................................................33
1.5 Summary of the chapter ......................................................................................35
CHAPTER 2. METHODOLOGY .........................................................................36
2.1 Research Setting ..................................................................................................36
2.2 Subjects ................................................................................................................36
2.3 Speech material ...................................................................................................37
2.4 Instruments ..........................................................................................................38
2.4.1 The intonation tasks ....................................................................................39
2.4.1.1 The perception task ........................................................................39
2.4.1.2 The production task ........................................................................39
2.4.2 The academic results ..................................................................................39
2.4.3 Survey questionnaire ..................................................................................40
2.4.3.1 The questionnaire items adopted in the present study ...................40
v
2.4.3.2 Structure of the survey questionnaire .............................................41
2.5 Data Collection and Data Analysis Procedure ....................................................41
2.6 Data Analysis .......................................................................................................43
2.6.1 Data obtained via the intonation tasks ........................................................43
2.6.2 Data obtained via the academic results ......................................................43
2.6.3 Data obtained via the survey questionnaire ................................................44
2.7 Summary of the chapter .......................................................................................44
CHAPTER 3. DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS ...........................................45
3.1 Research Question 1 – Error Analysis ................................................................46
3.1.1 Research question 1.1 – Error identification and description ....................46
3.1.1.1 Errors of joining more than one intonation unit into one unit........48
3.1.1.1.1 Errors of joining closely grammatically connected units
(Jc). ...................................................................................49
3.1.1.1.2 Errors of joining short units (Js).......................................49
3.1.1.2 Errors of splitting one intonation unit into more than one unit ......50
3.1.1.2.1 Splitting marked tonality at clause boundary without
comma (Sbwc) ................................................................50
3.1.1.2.2 Splitting marked tonality at clause boundary with comma
(Sbc)................................................................................51
3.1.1.2.3 Splitting tonality after the stressed in the head (Shs) .....51
3.1.1.2.4 Splitting tonality after the nucleus (Sn) ..........................52
3.1.1.2.5 Splitting tonality after the unstressed in the head (Shu) .53
3.1.1.2.6 Splitting tonality in and after the pre-head (Sp) .............53
3.1.1.2.7 Splitting tonality at unstressed syllables of tail (Stu) .....54
3.1.1.2.8 Splitting tonality after direct objects (So) ......................54
3.1.1.2.9 Splitting tonality after subjects (Ss) ...............................55
3.1.1.2.10 Splitting tonality at the changing point in the dive-Sd 56
3.1.2 Research Question 1.2 – Error Explanation ...............................................56
3.1.2.1 Interlingual errors ...........................................................................57
vi
3.1.2.2 Intralingual errors ...........................................................................58
3.1.2.2.1 Over-generalization ........................................................59
3.1.2.2.2 Ignorance of rule restrictions..........................................59
3.1.2.2.3 Incomplete application of rules ......................................60
3.2 Research Question 2: Correlation Investigation .................................................62
3.2.1 Research Question 2.1 Perceptive ability and productive ability ...............62
3.2.1.1 Better scores in perception task than in production task ...............63
3.2.1.2 The smaller number and the less frequency of errors in the
perception task than in the production task ...................................65
3.2.1.3 The fewer number of students making different types of errors in
perceptive task than in productive task .........................................67
3.2.2 Research Question 2.2 Language proficiency and tonality competence ....69
3.2.2.1 The bigger number of errors committed by the mid-ability group
compared to the higher ability group ............................................70
3.2.2.2 The bigger number of students in mid-ability group than in highability group committed different types of errors .........................71
3.3 Research question 3 – Attitude and Behavior Assessment .................................74
3.3.1 Students‟ beliefs and attitudes towards learning English intonation ..........74
3.3.2 Students‟ reactions to their problems .........................................................77
3.4 Summary of the findings .....................................................................................78
PART C. CONCLUSION .......................................................................................79
1. Recapitulation ......................................................................................................79
2. Concluding remarks ..............................................................................................80
2.1. Concluding remarks on objective 1 ...................................................................80
2.2. Concluding remarks on objective 2 ...................................................................80
2.3. Concluding remarks on objective 3 ...................................................................81
2.4. Concluding remarks on objective 4 ...................................................................81
2.5. Concluding remarks on objective 5 ...................................................................81
3. Recommendations .................................................................................................82
vii
4. Suggestions for further study ................................................................................84
REFERENCES .......................................................................................................... I
APPENDIX ............................................................................................................ IV
APPENDIX 1. PERCEPTION TASK ..................................................................... IV
APPENDIX 2. PRODUCTION TASK ...................................................................... V
APPENDIX 3. KEYS TO INTONATION TASKS................................................. VI
APPENDIX 4. PHONETIC TRANSCRITION OF INTONATION TASK .......... VII
APPENDIX 5. SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE ...................................................... VIII
APPENDIX 6. ACADEMIC RESULTS ................................................................... X
APPENDIX 7. APPROACHES TO TEACH INTONATION ............................... XI
APPENDIX 8. TECHNIQUES TO TEACH INTONATION ............................... XIII
APPENDIX 9. PRINCIPLES TO TEACH INTONATION ................................... XV
APPENDIX 10. TEACHERS‟ ROLES IN INTONATION TEACHING............ XVI
APPENDIX 11. EXERCISES AND ACTIVITIES FOR PRACTICE ............... XVIII
viii
LIST OF TABLES
Table 01: Rules of Neutral and Marked Tonality
Table 02: Stressed and Unstressed Words
Table 03: Structure of Intonation
Table 04: Instruments
Table 05: Types of intonation units
Table 06: Types of errors made in two intonation tasks
Table 07: Probable Causes to Tonality Errors
Table 08: The Allocation of Marks
Table 09: The Difference in the Scores of Intonation Tasks
Table 10: Frequency of Errors in Perception and Production Task
Table 11: The Allocation of Errors
Table 12: Types of Errors Made in Two Tasks
Table 13: The Number of Errors Committed by Members of Ability Groups
Table 14: The Number of Students Made Errors by Two Ability Groups
ix
LIST OF CHARTS
Chart 01: Proportion of joining and splitting errors
Chart 02: Proportion of error types
Chart 03: Number of students making errors from the most to the least
frequent in perception task
Chart 04: Number of students making errors from the most to the least
frequent in production task
Chart 05: The number of students made different types of errors in two
groups (According to Mid ability group)
Chart 06: The number of students made different types of errors in two
groups (According to High ability group)
x
ABBREVIATION AND SYMBOLS IN THE STUDY
- P1: Participant 1, test of twenty participants will be coded from P1 to P20
- M1-M12: twelve members of mid ability group
- H1-H8: eight members of high ability group
- Jc: Joining closely grammatically connected units
- Js: Joining nearby short units
- Sbc: Splitting marked tonality consisted of two clauses with a comma in between
- Sbwc: Splitting marked tonality consisted of two clauses without a comma in
between
- Sp: Splitting tone units in and after the pre-head
- Shu: Splitting tone units at the place of unstressed syllables in the head
- Sn: Splitting tone units after the nucleus
- Shs: Splitting tone units at the place of stressed syllables in the head
- Ss: Splitting tone units after subjects
- So: Splitting tone units after objects
- Sd: Splitting tone units in between of the dive
- Stu: Splitting tone units in the tail
- Tone unit boundary: // or / (for closely connected units)
E.g.: // The bus stopped // we‟d got to the terminus //
E.g.: //Do you really mean to tell me / you haven‟t got a suit since then? //
1
PART A. INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
Intonation is a helpful tool to achieve effective communication. Speech without intonation
features is no more than a machine output. Therefore, a proficiency in intonation is a
requirement for non-native learners of English. English intonation operates a trio of
systems including tonality (the choice of intonation unit), tonicity (the choice of the tonic
syllable or the nucleus) and tone (the choice of pitch movement on the nucleus). Each
subsystem itself, however, is a fairly complicated phenomenon. It is why when teaching
and learning English, both Vietnamese teachers and students pay more attention to
grammar, vocabulary, individual sounds; and pay very little attention to intonation. This
prevents learners from comprehending spoken English. Neglect of intonation in the past,
nonetheless, is now no excuse for neglect in the present.
For students at English Department, Chu Van An University, who will become translators
or interpreters of English in the near future, knowledge of English intonation is extremely
essential. Especially, those who intend to work as interpreters are obliged to work mostly
with spoken English. If they are not good at intonation, they are unable to interpret
meaning implied under what the native speakers say. Likewise, they may cause some
misunderstanding due to wrong use of intonation. From the teaching reality, I have realized
that my students encounter no few problems in speaking English intonationally. They even
find it difficult to identify correct intonation units, more difficult to determine the nucleus
among stress syllables in an intonation unit, and much more difficult to put a right pitch
movement on the nucleus. As a result, their speech is either jerky or monotonous or both.
Apart from that, I myself have a couple of difficulties with English intonation. I am aware
of the importance of English intonation. However, the amount of knowledge gained before
my post graduate course is not sufficient for me to feel confident about communicating in
English. Especially, I cannot escape from feeling that my speech is not natural.
With a hope that I can make some contributions to solving my own problems and my
students‟ difficulties in communicating in English I choose the study on “English
Intonation: Errors made by Third Year Students at English Department, Chu Van
An University.”
2
2. Scope of the study
Intonation is a vast topic in English teaching and learning. Thus, it is too ambitious to
cover so many aspects of English intonation in the study. That is the reason why the area
investigated in this thesis is the units of intonation - tonality.
Furthermore, second language learners are various and different in the ways of making
errors. However, due to limited size and time strain, subjects of the study concentrates on a
limited number of 20 third year English majors of Chu Van An University.
3. Aims and objectives of the study
3.1 Aims of the study
The ultimate aim of this thesis is, to the possible extent within the findings established, to
provide an account of the errors commonly committed by third year students at Chu Van
An University and on this basis, to facilitate the mentioned students in improving English
intonation unit usage.
3.2 Objectives of the study
Detect common errors in relation to English intonation units made by third year
English majors of Chu Van An University;
Find out the causes of these errors;
Investigate the relationship between participants‟ perceptive and productive ability;
Identify the correlation between third year students‟ language proficiency and their
ability of dividing speech into word groups;
Explore learners‟ beliefs and attitudes towards learning English intonation as well
as their solutions to the problems they made with English intonation units.
4. Research Questions
The specific objectives of the study can be elaborated into the following groups of research
questions:
1. Error analysis
3
1.1 What are the common errors in dividing speech into tone units at the
perception and production stage encountered by third year majors of
English Department, Chu Van An University?
1.2 What are factors that lead to errors of English tonality?
2. Correlation investigation
2.1 What is the relation between the perceptive and productive capacity for
intonation units?
2.2 What is the correlation between the students‟ language proficiency and their
ability of speech division into intonation units?
3. Attitude and behavior assessment
3.1What are students‟ beliefs and attitudes towards English intonation learning?
3.2 What do students do to resolve their own difficulties in learning intonation?
5. Significance of the study
The study is significant for the following reasons:
(1) The study is implemented to investigate students‟ errors when dividing
utterances into minor word groups – tonality. Therefore, it is hereby expected
that the study contributes to raising students‟ awareness of perceiving and
producing intonation units.
(2) It will help teachers to predict the learners‟ difficulties in learning intonation
unit and be aware of the problems so that they will have effective methods to
deliver their lectures on the issue in a way that it minimizes the tonality errors.
(3) More importantly, it offers some possible suggestions to solve the problems
and the pedagogical implications for further applications of teaching English
intonation in general and English intonation unit in particular in the classroom.
6. Design of the study
Alongside with the References and Appendices, the thesis is structured into three main
parts, namely Introduction, Development, and Conclusion. The Development part consists
of three chapters. The brief overviews of each part and chapter are as follows:
4
The Introduction offers the rationale for choosing the topic, the scope, the aims, the
objectives, the research questions, the significance as well as the design of the study.
The Development consists of three chapters in which
Chapter 1 - Literature Review - addresses the literature review of previous studies and
the theoretical issues related to English intonation. Within the chapter, nature, system,
structure and functions of intonation are discussed. Then one of the intonation systems
namely tonality system is specifically addressed. After that is coming to a section of error
analysis.
Chapter 2 - Methodology - presents an analytical framework used in the research to
reveal problems encountered by students including the instruments to collect data, the
procedures for data collection as well as data analysis applied in the study.
Chapter 3 - Data Analysis and Findings – is the most important part of the study in
which the data collected from such instruments as the perception and production tasks, the
academic result, and the questionnaire are analyzed one after another. The findings from
the data collected are presented and discussed in this chapter.
The third part of the study - the Conclusion represents the review of the study with the
summary of the thesis, concluding remarks, recommendations, and suggestions for further
study.
5
PART B. DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW
1.1 Previous works related to the topic of the study
As far as the researcher concerns, not many studies on intonation errors are found. There
are a few studies on intonation involving Arabic and Japanese language as follow:
Binghadeer (2008) investigated Saudi EFL learners‟ pitch range and compared it to that of
native speakers. The results revealed that non-native speakers differed significantly from
native speakers in the mean of the pitch range for utterances with falling intonation.
However, the study is the contrastive analysis of English with Arabic language, not with
Vietnamese. Moreover, pitch is just a component of intonation.
Ohata (2004) examined some of the characteristic phonological differences between
Japanese and English. Comparing segmental and supra-segmental aspects of both
languages, this study also discusses several problematic areas of pronunciation for
Japanese learners of English including intonation. Nonetheless, the problems made by
Japanese learners of English are surely not the same as those encountered by Vietnamese
ones.
The article “Teaching English intonation to EFL/ ESL Students” by Mehmet Celik,
Hacettepe University, Turkey proposed a framework of English intonation as a second or
foreign language to non-native speakers of English. It is proposed that a framework of
English intonation should include four major intonational features including rhythm units,
stress, tones, and pitch range. It also emphasizes the need to teach intonational features in
meaningful contexts with realistic language and point out the need to consider intonation
not as a luxury but a necessity for an efficient interchange in English. Although this
framework may approve to be useful and workable for practitioners in the field of ESL/
EFL, it seems to be fairly general and theoretical.
In Vietnam, it seems that the issues related to English intonation attract little attention of
authors and scholars. In one of the scare books of intonation in English and Vietnamese
entitled “English intonation by the Vietnamese” (Ngữ điệu tiếng Anh ở người Việt) by Dr.
Nguyen Huy Ky (2006), a number of clear descriptive demonstrations on intonation made
by the Vietnamese are shown in specific situations. The author points out series of errors
6
relating to English intonation contours, subjective and objective factors leading to the
errors and solutions to limit errors committed as well. The book is a valuable source for
Vietnamese learners who wish to learn or to do research on English intonation contours
made by Vietnamese learners.
Beside the book, the researcher found few studies on common errors related to English
Intonation made by Vietnamese learners. There are studies on intonation of yes-no
questions, or studies on separated elements of intonation. The following is the summary of
their findings.
Tam Dao Thi (2007) dealt with intonation in terms of functions and form with contrastive
analysis of three main components namely rhythm, stress and pitch. Nonetheless, the study
focuses on the similarity and differences in intonation of English and Vietnamese Yes-no
questions only. The study claimed that those differences surely cause problems to
Vietnamese learners of English, but the researcher find no information about what the
problems are.
In Nga Vu Thi‟s paper (2004) pitch – a component of intonation – has been considered one
of modality markers in English Wh-question. However, no information about the relation
between pitch and errors made by Vietnamese students are found.
Actually, there have had few studies related to tonality errors in intonation learning, there,
obviously, do exist a large gap in taking a step into creating a picture of intonation error
analysis. Intonation is important but complicated. However, it is systematic, too. In order
to become competent in intonation, it is the first system of intonation – tonality - that is
elementary to be acquired by students and that tonality errors are essential to be analyzed.
For that reason, it is necessary to have an overview of English intonation in general and in
English tonality in particular.
1.2 English Intonation
1.2.1 Definitions of intonation
Different linguists have different definitions for intonation. According to Paul Tench
(1996: 1) “intonation refers to the rise and the fall of the pitch of voice in spoken
language”. This definition to a certain extent shares the same content with Gerald Kelly‟s
definition. He (2000: 86) emphasizes that “the term intonation refers to the way the voice
7
goes up and down in pitch when we are speaking”. From the words of these two authors, it
can be seen that intonation is closely associated with speech and a feature of the spoken
language. Despite being represented by two different terms which are “the rise and the fall
of the pitch” in Tench‟s definition and “the way the voice goes up and down in pitch” in
Kelly‟s definition, pitch variation is a key element to identify intonation. The terms “pitch
variation” is also found with intonation in other definitions from other authors. For
example, Peter Roach (2001: 33) considers that “intonation is the melody of speech, and is
to be analyzed in terms of variations in pitch” or O‟ Connor (1973: 1) states that “when we
talk about English intonation we mean the pitch patterns of spoken English, the speech
tunes or melodies , the musical features of English”.
In the present study, the researcher adopts the definition from the Longman Dictionary of
Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (1992: 190) that is
“When speaking, people generally raise and lower the pitch of their voice, forming pitch
patterns. They also give some syllables in their utterances a greater degree of loudness and change
their speech rhythm. These phenomena are called intonation. Intonation does not happen at
random but has definite patterns which can be analyzed according to their structure and functions.
Intonation is used to carry information over and above which is expressed by the words in the
sentence”.
From the definition, it can be seen that pitch variations, stress, and speech rhythm seem to
be closely related to intonation. That is to say, they are three key components forming
three sysytem of English intonation nanely tone, tonicity, and tonallity. Additionnally, the
definition reveals that English iontonation has its own structure and functions, and one
function is to carry information. In the following sections, systems, structure, and functions
of English intonation are clearly discussed.
1.2.2
Systems of intonation
Opposite to the idea that intonation is so subjective, in the view of Tench (1991:84)
“Intonation is admittedly personal, but it is also conventional”. The statement is clearly
demonstrated by the fact that intonation is systematic, and the systems can be described.
There are three primary subsystems of intonation, namely, tonality, tonicity and tone.
Nonetheless, due to the focus of the present thesis, system of tonality is gone into more
details in a separated part.
8
1.2.2.1 Tonality
Paul Tench (1996:31) considers tonality as the system in intonation that divides spoken
discourse into its separate individual intonation units, each of which represents one unit of
information. Spoken discourse may be only one word, even only one syllable, a sentence
or the whole text. It may consist of only one message, one or more than one piece of
information which is conveyed by an intonation unit. Thus, if a spoken discourse consists
of only one syllable, one word, or represents one message, there is no problem. Otherwise,
learners of English will face with difficulties in identifying intonation units which correctly
represent the speaker‟s management of the organization of information.
1.2.2.2 Tonicity
It is generally the case that what informs the hearers most will receive the most prominent
stress – “tonic stress”. Moreover, stress clung to syllable. Thus, the syllable receive the
tonic stress is called “tonic syllable”, “nucleus”, or “tonicity”.
System of tonicity is the range of choices in the position that the tonic syllable can have in
a given intonation units. Tonicity or tonic syllable is the focal point of intonation, the heart
of an intonation unit, so it is the tonic syllable that is the compulsory part of each
intonation unit.
Tonic syllable is characterized by phonetic prominence in intonation units. Of the stressed
syllables in any given intonation units, the tonic syllable is made most prominent by a
combination of pitch, volume and length. As tonic represents the focus of each unit of
information, when the tonic is changed, so is the focus of information. Therefore, if the
speaker does not reach the tonic syllable in any given intonation unit, then we do not have
enough clues to decide on the structure and the focus of information in that particular part
of the message.
Consider the following, in which the contrastive nucleus is capitalized and underlined:
(1): SHE played the piano yesterday. (It was her, not him or anyone else.)
(2): She PLAYED the piano yesterday. (She only played not harmed.)
(3): She played the PIANO yesterday. (It was the piano not violin.)
(4): She played the piano YESTERDAY. (It was yesterday not today.)
9
1.2.2.3 Tone
Of all the aspects that intonation covers, tone plays a vital role. English is considered as
intonation language, that is, the language that does not use tone for a change in lexical
meaning but for intonation meanings. In English, tones can only be identified on a small
number of particular prominent syllables. Therefore, English tone has been defined as “the
contrastive pitch movement on the tonic syllables” (Tench, 1996: 73) or “the main
movements of pitch within a tone unit” (Kelly, 2000: 89).
Each linguist has their own classifications of English tones. Crystal (1969) recognizes four
basic tones (fall, rise, rise-fall, and fall-rise). Brazil (1997) and Roach (1983) identify five
tones (fall, rise, rise-fall, fall-rise, and level) whereas O'Connor and Arnold (1973)
distinguish seven tones (high-fall, low-fall, high-rise, low-rise, fail-rise, rise-fall, and midlevel). In the words of Tench (1996) it appears that three primary tones can be efficiently
taught to non-native speakers of English, namely, falling, rising, and falling-rising tone.
Celik (2001) adds one more tone, the high rise tone.
1.2.3
Structure of intonation
I have an idea to begin this section with a very familiar saying (1) “A ′dog is a ′man‟s ′best
′friend.” It is most likely to be said with the word “friend” being most prominent and the
pitch of the voice falling to a low level on that word. With these features, the word “friend”
is said to be tonic syllable or nucleus. The part from “a” up to “best” is considered the “pre
tonic segment” which can be divided into the “pre-head” with the unstressed word “a” and
the “head” which begins with the first stressed syllable “dog” up to the word right before
the nucleus “best”.
The sentiment of the above saying could be rendered as (2) “′Dogs are ′men‟s ′best
′friends.” In this case, the utterance has only nucleus (friends) and head (Dogs are the
men‟s best). If we put the wording on a different situation (suppose the topic of the
conversation is different, say, which animals are men‟s best friend, and someone says (3)
“′Dogs are ′men‟s ′best ′friends” with a contrastive emphasis on “dogs”. Instead of having
pre-tonic segment with pre-head and head, this intonation unit has only the tonic (dogs)
and the tail (the words subsequent to the word “dog”).
From three examples, we have a table as follows:
10
Pre-tonic segment
Tonic/nucleus
Pre-head
(1)
A
(2)
Tail
Head
′dog is a ′man‟s ′best
′friend
′Dogs are ′men‟s ′best
′friends
′Dogs
(3)
are ′men‟s ′best ′friends
From the table, it is acknowledged that each intonation unit has one and only one
obligatory tonic syllable. The other parts of the unit can appear no not. The structure of an
intonation unit can be generalized in the following diagram:
TONE UNIT
(TU)
Pre-head
(PH)
Head
(H)
Tonic syllable
(TS)
Tail
(T)
Structure of intonation here is shown through structure of each intonation unit in an
utterance. According to Paul Tench (1996:12), structure of an individual intonation unit
consists of pre-tonic segment and tonic or nucleus and tail. Among those, the tonic is
obligatory and the most prominent word; the head, pre-head and tail are optional
Tonic syllable is the most prominent syllable in an intonation unit. Each intonation unit has
one and only one tonic syllable. This means that the tonic syllable is an obligatory
component since it carries the tone in the intonation unit.
The chart also reveals that pre-tonic segment is composed of two smaller parts namely prehead and head. The head extends from the first stressed syllable up to but not including the
tonic syllable. If there is no stressed syllable before the tonic syllable, there cannot be a
head.
The pre-head is comprised of all the unstressed syllables in tone-unit preceding the first
stressed syllable
Any syllables between the tonic syllable and the end of the tone unit are called the tail.
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