Intonation in Questions : Practice Material

Abstract

In this work we are going to deal with intonation in the English language; more specifically, with the intonation of questions in Standard British English (SBE), as this is the standard accent chosen at the School of Languages, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (UNC), to teach pronunciation to undergraduate students. We will discuss intonation theories that will serve as basis for the presentation of material focused only on introducing and practising intonation in questions. Intonation in questions is dealt with in the last unit of the subject Phonetics and Phonology 1. Students learn about intonation and practise it following the model developed by Brazil (1997) and Brazil et al (1980) called Discourse Intonation (DI). Following these scholars, a variety of meanings and attitudes are expressed when using different tones in one same utterance, reason why intonation becomes relevant for effective message transmission.