Paralinguistic features of English intonation

The term paralinguistic is variously used in the literature, so we shall begin the discussion by stating what we mean by it. First, we must assume that the ' ideal' speech (say of the news reader) is paralinguistically ‘unmarked’. The speech of actors in radio or television plays is characterized by certain emo­tions which result in a certain loudness, tempo, timing, pau­ses, pitch span, placing in voice range and others. These paralinguistic features contribute, to a great extent, to the attitudinal message which the utterance conveys. A model coloring that each utterance possesses can be attributed to the reali­zation of potential paralinguistic features of a certain indi­vidual. In this respect all the features are relative. Thus, if a person who normally speaks loudly is speaking low and quietly, he is believed to have some deep emotions.

Contrarily, a person with an excitable manner of speaking that he uses ha­bitually, can't be considered to have deep emotions each time he is speaking. And certainly, he doesn't intend to sound ‘surprised’ or ‘involved’. Paralinguistic features in our un­derstanding form an emotive modal frame every utterance can have in a given spontaneous context (or discourse), apart from pragmatic attitudinal modal frame. And if a speaker is really surprised or involved he doesn't show it. He simply issurprised.

If the listener is presupposed to know the speaker well enough, he will certainly per­ceive not only the message of the utterance but the emotions of the speaker, too. If not, the communication is not at all hampered because the listener can easily interpret the mes­sage of the utterance with its implications (i.e. the meaning of an utterance which is not said but implied).Though we are not safe when there are misunderstandings in some cases.

Still, if there weren't most general regulations in paralinguistic framing of utterances the whole process of des­cription of this aspect of phonetics would be fruitless. The following brief discussion of the problem proves the fact.

Each individual has a part of his voice range within which he normally speaks. This range can be quite wide, or quite narrow with one individual or the other. But there is always some voice range above the normal speech range, what we might call the ‘growl’ range, which is not used at all in ‘unmarked’ speech. Every time the departure from the normal speech span is registered it indicates that some attitude is being expressed. Pitch span alone can hardly indicate what that attitude is. We need see with our own eyes the speaker and only judging by his behaviour we can perceive his emotions.

The placing of these various pitch spans in different parts of the total voice range produces its emotional effect on the listener. It is very common experience that when we are nervous we shoot up in the voice range. If the normal unmarked span is lifted into the top of the normal speaking range, even partly, into the ‘squeak’ range this seems often to correlate with a state of nervousness or excitement. Again, the mere fact of lifting the span does not explicitly specify the emotion. It only indicates that some positive attitude or emotion is being expressed.

In the same way, going down in one's normal speaking range does not appear to express sincerity, responsibility or other. We simply can't tie lowering of the voice range to some specific emotions. These emotions will be determined by quite other things which are beyond the boundaries of linguistics, lowering of the voice range may come out of the speakers in fear of being overheard.

Everyone has a normal tempo of speech. Sometimes a speaker speaks faster than at other times. We can't judge the signi­ficance of this change in speed if the change is simply con­sidered as a phenomenon by itself. Speed may be associated with urgency - the delivery of an important message in a hur­ry. Slow tempo can't be associated with any specific attitudes. A speaker may speak slowly because he is thinking carefully about what he is saying. Equally, a speaker may speak slowly because he wishes to give an impression that he is thinking carefully about what he is saying. Many public figures speak slowly, well down in the voice range, with lots of stressed words, long-drawn-out tonic syllables, and significant pauses. So, rapidity or slowness of speech co-occur with other extra-linguistic features and have no significance by themselves. The same can be said about loudness. To some extent each individual can vary the normally loud way of talking. In pub­lic he speaks more loudly than if he is speaking privately. Loudness and softness are often closely associated with pitch span. It is difficult to speak loudly on a very restricted pitch span. It is rare to find an extended pitch span used while speaking softly. If the speaker uses the big pitch this can be associated with loudness, and this is quite common.

We shall not discuss here the questions of voice setting, articulatory setting, articulatory precision, lip setting, ti­ming of segments and syllables and some other paralinguistic features which are not quite as valuable as above mentioned. Nevertheless, we shall give some information about pauses, which we discussed briefly in the previous chapter. In our opinion there are number of specific stylistic uses of pause: one is to give the impression of fluent speech by making pauses in unnatural places, the second - is much more general use.

The pause is used to put the second speaker at a disadvantage. But practically, the function of pause is to indicate that the speaker is considering what to say next.

All paralinguistic features of English intonation together with the phonetic means of transmission of the message serve one particular function - that of being a guide for the lis­tener to interpret this very utterance or utterances in the context. When the speaker is making a remark which he considers to be the central point in his argument, he will make its importance clear to the listeners by marking it with some or all of the following paralinguistic features: extended pitch range, slow tempo, precise articulation, extended ti­ming. He may speak low in his pitch range, often with 'crea­ky' voice, but if the remark is then to be perceived as im­portant, he must either utter the whole remark slowly, or ex­tended the timing of the tonic word. He may also use the in­tonation resources available putting important words into separate tone groups, and thus making them tonic words. We named just a few possible resources a speaker can use to achieve his own pragmatic aim. By using a certain set of phonetic devices the speaker signals out that what he is saying is important, even though the utterance he produces is somewhat deviant.

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