Intonation of American English
Pitch is how we raise or lower our voice when we speak. The use of pitch is called intonation. Native speakers use intonation to subtly change the meaning of a sentence.
Pitch and stress are related, and the stressed syllable of a content word may have a higher pitch than the function words.
A thought group is a chunk of words between pauses and are often made of multiple phrases. A pause while speaking is equivalent to a written comma or punctuation at the end of a sentence.
Within a thought group, the stressed syllable of one content word usually has a higher pitch than the other stressed syllables. This word is called the primary word.
Americans raise and lower their pitch quite often while speaking and use pitch to give subtle changes to meaning to the words we choose to use.
English speakers mark words with a higher pitch to:
- make a simple statement (neutral statement)
- contrast or clarify information
- give new information
- show emphasis
- ask questions
We will begin talking about pitch and intonation in terms of moving between 4 levels of pitch. 4-pitch is the highest level of pitch and is used when the speaker wants to emphasize something, make a contrast, or show strong feelings. 3-pitch is the usual level of the primary word of a thought group, and is most commonly the highest pitch of a thought group. 2-pitch is the neutral pitch, and often used at the beginning of a thought, and 1-pitch is the pitch a speaker often falls to at the end of their thought.
It is important to note also that a speaker's pitch travels slightly up and down from these levels throughout a thought group and with nearly every word; these levels are merely used to generalize the use of pitch for practicing pronunciation. Also, these levels are relative; each speaker has a slightly different pitch for each level.
The menu at left provides links to intonation lessons for American English pronunciation.
Intonation
