Intonation

Intonation is the music of a language, the combination of high and low notes. Sentences, questions and words all rise and fall because of intonation. Correct intonation can improve your conversation with others. Incorrect intonation can lead to misunderstanding, your listener losing interest in you, or even getting insulted by what you say!. Sometimes intonation is even more important than the words that you say. Take a look at these examples in which the meaning changes according to intonation: John will come to the PARty with me John will come to the party with ME JOHN will come to the party with me John will COME to the party with me

Word stress and intonation

In words of more than one syllable, there will be one syllable which is more heavily stressed than the others. We say that this syllable carries the primary stress (eg. apartment). In some longer words, other syllables may carry secondary stress. The most important thing is to recognize where the primary stress is - and remember that it can change between words derived from the same base (eg. photograph, photographer, photographic). Intonation is the name given to sentence stress; just as words have stressed syllables, sentences contain regular patterns of stressed words. In addition, the voice tends to rise, fall or remain flat in various different types of phrases and sentences

The two most commonly used sentence intonation patterns used in spoken English are: rising-falling intonation and rising intonation.

Rising-Falling Intonation
In rising-falling intonation the speakers pitch rises and falls on the focus word in a sentence. The final falling pitch indicates that the speaker is finished talking. Rising-falling intonation is found in:

Declarative sentences Commands (very strong) Wh questions Exclamations

Examples:

She wants to buy some SOda. When is John coming Over? Thats so nice of you!

Rising Intonation
In rising intonation the speakers pitch rises and stays HIGH at the end of a sentence. The rising pitch at the end of a sentence indicates that the speaker is waiting for a reply. Rising intonation is found in:

yes/no questions situations when someone is expressing doubt or surprise

Examples:

Do you think thats a good deCISion? Is he coming over this afternoon? You spent 500 dollars on SHOES?

http://www.confidentvoice.com/englishsent...onpatterns.html http://www.learnenglish.de/pronunciation/intonat...ression.htm http://phoneticsthree.blogspot.com/2011.../whatisintonation.html