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Text for pragmatic analysis
The first – and sometimes most difficult – decision students have to make is exactly what aspects of a topic to focus on. Most topics are bored enough to allow more than a single approach, so students need to decide what points to emphasize. The second step is determined by the first. Having decided what to focus on, students need to look at their material and decide what ideas and details suit the focus. The problem most often encountered here is that students are reluctant to omit any of the precious material that was so painfully generated and try to find ways to shoehorn almost all of it in, so we will need to stress that part of becoming a good writer is learning to eliminate irrelevant material. Finally, students need to arrange the points in the most effective order and decide what to say about each. 4.3. ‘New’ and ‘old’ information
Pragmatically, division of the relating information onto ‘given’ and ‘new’ roughly corresponds to the syntactic division of a sentence into subject and predicate. The predicate phrase contains the main information and the focus (the tonic stress) usually marks the last lexical item. Additional information within predicate phrase involves the change of the tonic stress from final falling to non-final falling (which signals out the introduction of a subsidiary part) or sometimes to falling-rising (bearing implicative information), or low rising (which marks closer relations between two pieces of information). Cf.:
The subject phrase contains ‘given’ (old) information, though in a new aspect, and if it is a long phrase, it receives the focus (one of the three possible variants) while separating from the long predicate phrase. By separating the subject phrase the speaker shows that he changes from one point to another, and he gives his listeners the hint by drawing his attention to something ‘new’ in comparison with the preceding context. Cf.:
The tendency of placing the most important information at the end of an utterance may result in different lexical arrangements. Cf.:
If it is necessary to change the focus without changing lexical arrangement and syntactic structure of an utterance, the speaker can do it by shifting the tonic stress (the focus) from its usual place on the last lexical item onto the one which is needed. Cf.:
The shifting of the tonic stress marks the connecting of the utterance to the preceding/following context, in other word shifting turns a sentence into an utterance fitting a certain pragmatic context. The shifting may reach the first stressed item in an utterance. Initial position is also very important for communication since it is the setting. Placing the tonic on the first stressed word changes the pragmatic interpretation of an utterance. Cf.:
The English language has special focusing adverbs (like only, alone, quite, even, rather, certainly, also, etc.) which may indicate the necessary shifting of the tonic. Their function is purely pragmatic. Cf.:
The following lexical items – nouns (like heaps, crowds, hundreds), pronouns (like this, that, all), verbs (like adore, hate, rove), adjectives (like strange, shocking) used in the utterance may influence the shifting of the focus. Cf.:
The tonic can, primarily be of two types: either ‘falling’ or ‘rising ‘(‘falling-rising‘ is considered a compound variation with specific pragmatic meanings). The tonic begins in the last prominent syllable and ends at the end of the tonic unit, thus including the following unstressed syllables. The‘rising’tonic: the last prominent syllable is pronounced relatively low with the rising occurring in the following syllables, if any. The‘falling’tonic: the falling of the voice generally occurs within one prominent syllable, while the rest of the falling syllables are pronounced low. In case there are several unstressed post-tonic syllables, there might be a slight rising at the end. Cf.:
‘falling‘ tonic ‘rising’ tonic
There may be a step up to the starting point before actually pronouncing a ’falling’ tone, and there may be a step down to reach the starting point of a ‘rising’ tone. The difference between ‘rising’ and ‘falling’ tonic stresses lies in the field of pragmatic meaning (carrying implied or implicit information). ‘Falling’ tone is used by the speaker to show that what he’s talking about, is ‘new ‘information. ‘Rising’ tone, on the contrary, signals out that no ‘new’ information is changing hands; the speaker is mainly checking some ‘old’ items, or already ‘shared’ information, expecting participation on the part of the listener. Otherwise, he may have some other pragmatic aims. Cf.:
about.
Pronoun ‘it’ in (a), though unstressed, marks ‘old’ information lexically, whereas the ‘rising’ tonic – intonationally. In (c) the rising in ‘after’ marks already ‘no news’, the post-tonic words contain nothing new, either; as a result they are left unstressed. Tone unit division enables the speaker to help the listener with the clues how to interpret his utterance - either as ‘news’, or as ‘not news’.
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But I have a FEEling, + perhaps the WRONG one, + that that’s the right way to solve this PROBlem.
The surprise in Joanna’s VOICE + made me feel ashamed of my iDEAS.
My → FAther + owns the largest betting shop in LONdon
The largest betting shop in LONdon +belongs to my FAther.
The kettle is BOILING (an ordinary statement).
Hm. Rather a LONG way to come.
EvenIknow the answer.
He ALWAYS behaved like that.
(b) it’s the second turning on the LEFT (b) on your LEFT
(a) After you PASSED it, (b) turn RIGHT.
(c ) And soon AFter you’ve turned right (d) you’ll see a mini ROUND