Introducing
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
Rising and Rising-Falling Intonation
62
Rising and Rising-Falling Intonation
Rising intonation means the pitch of the voice increases over time; falling intonation means that the pitch decreases with time.
What is intonation?
Four Relative Pitch Levels
1. Lower pitch
2. Mid pitch or normal
3. High pitch
4. Extra high pitch
It is about how we say things, rather than what we say. Without intonation, it's impossible to understand the expressions and thoughts that go with words.
It is the melodic rise and fall of a language.
It is the manner of speaking the language.
It also refers to the rhythm given to speech by the rise and fall of the pitch.
It can indicate a speaker’s attitude; and signal the grammatical status of a statement.
Rising intonation: Yes/No questions, tag and echo questions, statements made into questions.
Examples:
• Are you there?
• What do I want?
• You are beautiful?
Falling intonation: making statements, orders and requests and wh-questions.
Examples:
• I am beautiful.
• Give me the key.
• Please, stay.
• What is your name?
Specific Uses of Levels of Pitch
The low is usually used to signal the end of a statement. The normal is used when one starts an utterance. The high is used to indicate a stressed syllable in a word and is also used to emphasize a word in a phrase or sentence. The very high is used to indicate excitement, fear or any other strong feeling.