Functions of Intonation

      The intonation is a controversial issue that has many concepts and can be varied due to the production of speech sound. To understand the term intonation, functions of language and speech act should be both taken into consideration.

Language is often described as having the following four major functions:

        1. A descriptive ( ideational ) function: organizing a speaker's or writer's experience of the world   

           and conveying information which can be stated or denied and in some cases tested.

        2. A social ( interpersonal ) function: used to establish maintain and signal relationship between 

            people.

        3. An expressive function: through which speakers signal information about their opinions,    

            prejudice and past experience.  

       4. A textual function: creating written and spoken texts.

 The Russian-American linguist, Roman Jakobson, listed six other language functions. These six functions can be described as follows:

         1. The referential (denotative, cognitive, representative, informative) function.

         2. The emotive (expressive ) function.

         3. The conative (appellative, imperative, directive) function.

         4. The phatic ( relational or contact) function.

         5. The metalingual (metasemiotic ) function.

         6. The poetic (esthetic or rhetorical ) function.

      Briefly, speech of act theory consists of two kinds of meaning:

               a) propositional ( locutionary) meaning i.e. the literal meaning of the utterance.

               b) illocutionary meaning ( force) i.e. the effect the utterance or written text has on the listener 

                   or reader.

As a part of language components, intonation has four functions. These functions are:

         1. The attitudinal function which expresses the speakers' utterances and releases their emotions,

            Feelings and attitudes. Non-verbal communication plays very important role in intonation. This 

            can be clear in paralinguistic elements such as facial expressions and body movements. The  

            conversational use of spoken language cannot be properly understood unless paralinguistic 

            elements are taken into account.        

         2. Accentual function: the term accentual refers to accent. When it is said that intonation has accentual

            function, it implies that the placement of stress is somewhat determined by intonation.

         3. Grammatical function which is used in three ways:

                  i) The placement of boundaries between phrases, clauses and sentences.

                  ii) The difference between questions and statements.

                  iii) Question-tags.

         4. The discourse function: intonation can signal to the listener what is to be taken as "new vs. 

              given" information, information content or in term of importance.