Somebody dropped me a note the other day asking about intonation and what exactly intonation is.  Well it isn't that hard a concept, although it is a little subtle at times.

Basically, in language, intonation is the rising, or falling pitch in the speakers voice as they say words or phrases.  In many languages, changes in pitch reflect a change in meaning of what is being said. 

Some languages are considered to be 'tonal languages'.  That is, the language makes use of different tones to signify different meanings.  Mandarin Chinese, and Thai are two that quickly spring to mind.  What this means is that in tonal languages, words that are the same in all ways except the intonation will have different meanings.  Of course the use of tones is not limited to distinguishing different words.

Other languages, like English are said to be non-tonal.  This is of course not entirely correct.  English speakers make great use of intonation to, among other things, signify mood, or differentiate questions from statements (as well as yes/no questions from wh questions).  Additionally some Englishes have tonal variations like the raising of dipthongs in Canadian English (known as Canadian Raising).

Intonation works at word, phrase, and sentence levels to vary meaning, intent, and emotion.  There are also tonal differences noted between male and female speech patterns in most languages.

Intonation is a subtle, but critical component of full spoken fluency in any language.  For language learners, it is often one of the last things to be mastered as it requires tremendous levels of exposure to and interaction with native speakers of the language being learned.

Hopefully this sheds a little light on what intonation is, and why it is important to master.

Cheers,

Eric

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