Luận văn an analysis of the use of basic falling and rising tunes in some interviews from the ellen show

Crystal 1969:254 discusses the grammatical and semantic functions of intonation as follows ‘grammatical considerations are relevant for the study of intonation in so far as it can be sh

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOL

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

LE TH] MINH NGUYỆT

AN ANALYSIS OF THE USE OF BASIC FALLING AND RISING

TUNES IN SOME [INTERVIEWS FROM THE ELLEN SHOW

PHAN TICH CACH SU DỤNG NGỮ ĐIỆU XUÔNG VÀ LÊN TRONG MỘT SỐ ĐOẠN PHỎNG VĂN TRÍCTI TỪ TIIP ELLEN SIIOW

M.A MINOR THESIS

Ficld: English Linguistics

Code: 60220201

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOL UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

Lit TIM MINIINGUYET

AN ANALYSIS OF THE USE OF BASIC FALLING AND RISING TUNES IN SOME LXTERVIEWS FROM THE ELLEN SHOW

PHAN TICH CACH SU DỤNG NGỮ ĐIỆU XUÔNG VÀ LÊN TRONG

MOT SO BOAN PIIONG VAN TRICH TU THE ELLEN SIIOW

M.A MINOR TITESIS

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 60220201

Supervisor: Ha Cẩm Tâm, Ph.D

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The first name to be mentioned here is my supervisor's, Dr Ha Cam Tarn, who has been providing me with precious eamest advice and valuable instructions for my research implementation Without her help, there definitely

would not be this thesis

On conducting this research, I also received help and encouragement from

my beloved family, who always stand for and by my side throughout thie Gime T

worked on this study

Finally, I would like to deliver the sincere gratitude to my colleagues for their support and assistance in terms of ideas, materials as well as administration

for me to fulfill the thesis.

ABSTRACT

How to speak English with the appropriate intonation? How to teach and learn English intonation effectively and properly? ote They are always big questions under vestless mind of English teachers and learners nol only in Viel Nam but also in the English-speaking words There has been existing a traditional so-called correlation between intonation tunes and sentence types such as Declarative, Inlarogative and Inperalive Sentences in the practice of English teaching, ‘he current paper presents another effort to verify this myth by analyzing the use of tunes and the sentence types in the conversations selected from the most popular Television talk show in American- the Ellen Show By closely examining the bulk of 872 intonation units, this study point out the dominance of falling tunes in real-life conversations More importantly, the

research results supports the correlation belween certain sentence types and some

specific tunes while underlines the inconsistence in the use of falling and rising

‘tunes and other sentence types under different circumstances:

iii

LIST OF SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS

TU: Intonation Unit

(128) | So you are thirleen years/ olá|

(123) Intonation Unit Number

old: ‘Tonic syllable

LIST OF TABLE

TTable 3: TỪ 5yntactic siruettre coi 28

Table 4: Svntaclic Struclures of TÙs - - - 28

Table 5; Proportion of Tunes and Sentence Types in both SCs and CCs

Table 6; Declarative and Falling/Ñising Tunes à 31 Table 7; WH-Interrogalive and Falling/Rising Tunes - - 32 Table 8; Correlation between Yes/No Inierrogative and The tunes 32 Table 9: Imperatives and Falling/Rising Tunes - - 34

v

2 AIMS OF THE STUDY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS 3

3 SCOPE QE THE SÿTUDY ào

5.2 To language user-leamers and teachers 4

6 ORGANISATION OF THE 8TUĐY 4 PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT

1.1.6.1 Definition ec săn, TÔ)

1.1.7 Sentence types in SC and CC TUs - - 13

1.1.7.1 Declarative senfenee ceceeeieererrrrreere, 13

‘WL interrogative and Falling/Rising Tunes - 32

2.2.2.3 Yes/No Interrogative and Falling/Rising Tunes 33

2.2.2.2.4, Imperatives and Falling/Rising Tunes

2, Lmplication for Teaching and Learning Tĩnglish eoneeenne BD

3, Limitations and Suggestions for further research - - 30

APPENDIX 1: List of Links for Excerpts fram The Ellen Show

APPENDIX 2: SAMPLE TRANSCRIPTION ANALYSIS

vil

would be presented first, then came the aims and research questions of the study

The third part concems with the scope of the study, followed by the methods and

significance of this research A brief description on the organization of this

minor study wraps up the Introduction part

L RATIONALE

Intonation has always been the mysterious and promising woods which

thas inspired a great deal of exploration, arguments and mediation to achieve a satisfactory agreement on its nature as well as values in languages Intonation,

the so-called ‘melody of specch’ (Roach,2001), is ‘what you had when the prose was spoken” (Couper-Kuhlen,2007)

Tn the past fifly years, intonation has becn steadily acknowledging ils indispensable roles and valuss im commurtcation via the lool of languages

Dining this process, the works contering on the issues of intonation has recorded

numerous changes from both thearelical and practical perspectives, some of

which are curently far from a final conclusion While traditional viewpoints

simply cquale intonation with ‘he usc of the pitch of the voice to convey

linguistic information’ (Gilbert, 1987), the more recent and contemporary linguists argue about a far more complex nature of intonation, as Roach (2009: 43) claims: “in its broader and more popular sense it is used to cover much the same field as ‘prosody’, where variations in such things as voice quality, tempo and loudness are included.”

With that vivid transformation and nonstop development as well as the increasingly important roles in linguistics, intonation is currently an appealing topic for further research It is not difficult to find that the majority of linguistics research on intonation is devoted to the functions of intonation Roach (1991 163) defines four functions of intonation: to express emotions and attitude as we speak — altitudinal fimotion, to produce the effect of prominence on syllables —

accentual function, to recognize the grammar and syntactic structure of what is

‘being said — grammatical fimetion, and to signal to the listener what is “new” and

“given” information” Crystal (1969:254) discusses the grammatical and

semantic functions of intonation as follows

‘grammatical considerations are relevant for the study of intonation in so far as it can be shown that a given grammatical structure has a regular correlation

with a given intonational pattern, and that a change in intonation causes one to

re-label {re-interpret) the syntactic structure of an utterance, no other

morphological change being necessary’

In contrast, a number of phonologists believe that this function is incapable by

iself to provide adequate account for certain Mmtonafional patterns A wide range of

linguistic works (Roach, O’Connor & Amold, Crystal, Halliday, Cruttenden) suggest

astrong tendency to have falling tone in statements and WH-queslions and nsing tone

in Yes/No questions, bul also asserl dat the “geucralizalions are loo broad” and this traditional view only seraiches the surface”

This controversial issuc, at the same time, causes great contusion and nuisarice for the learners and teachers of English as a [oreigm language, which the writer as a novice teacher has been experiencing There’s still a need for an appropriate guideline on the correlation of the tunes and the grammatical structures of utterances This is particularly meaningful and importance in the case of EFL learning and teaching in VictNam, where

intonation is an exotic concept to the Vietnamese Linguistic reservoir of HEL

learners as well as teachers

Moreover, most the previous studies on intonation are based on read-

aloud conversations or speech, sometimes isolated utterances from official

corpus (Ladd, 1985 as an example) Therefore, a closer look into naturally- occurring discourse can hopefully be contributable to the field of intonation and

to the writer particularly The extracts of two-or- three speaker interviews from

the show, an American television talk show hosted by comedian/actress Ullen DeGeneres with the best-known celebrities all over the world provide the research with a varied accents and extremely colorful cultural background The

show has won 32 Daytime Emmy Awards as of 2011 The 10th season of the

show, from which the selected excerpts are taken, began on September 10, 2012

In a nutshell, the significance of intonation tunes in successfully communication together with the desire of the author as a EFL teacher to obtain

an empirically-driven and efficiency framework to teach intonation to her

students are the justifications behind the choice of the current paper topic

kề

2 ALMS OF THE STUDY AND RESEARCH QUE: ONS

The primary purpose and aim of the current study is to provide a closer

look into the use of falling and rising tunes in the context of a real-life talk show, which would be the closest form of naturally occurring conversation The author would like to discover the frequency of falling and rising tunes in the free-style chat show to partially establish a conclusion about the dominance of these two tones in English conversations Moreover, another issue to be cleared out is the

long-in-dispute problems of correlation between the tunes employed and

different: sentence lypes, including Declarative, WhInterrogative, Yes/No

Interrogative and Imperative The degree of correlation, which would pave the

way to the formation of a generalization for the conelalion, then is another aim

of the study

Therefore, this winor resvarch target lo research questions as follows:

1 How ficquently are fallmg and rising tunes used in the selected

interviews [rom the Ellen Show?

2 Is there a correlation between the fallmg and rising tunes and sentence types at the level of intonation unit? Ef-yes, how is the correlation realized?

3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Under the scope of this mini study, the author would closely examine the use of falling and rising tunes as well as the relationship between the

tunes and the syntactic structures of the intonation units To mention the

materials for the data collection and analysis, the author would selectively

analyze 10 two-speaker or three-speaker interview extracts from the interviews with the highest viewings from the Lillen Show website

4 METHODS OF THE STUDY

As far as the method is cancemed, there were two different types of

methods employed to obtain the data and reach the conclusion of this study In

the first stage, the author used analytical methods to observe the intonation

pattems of utterances in the extracts and analyze their functions Then, quantitative method took over the main role in synthesizing the statistics collected from the descriptive step

5 SIGNIFICANE OF THE STUDY

Uopefully, the writer can find her own minor study meaningful and

helpful, despite to a very small extent, to the area of intonation research as well

as intonation as a component of English language, users-leamers and teachers in

some following aspects

5.1 To the area of intonation research

- To build up the encrmous literature on intonation of Dnglish with

another moderate empirical effort In particular, this stady is hoped to enrich the naturally-occurring discourse analysis on intonation

- To provide an new evidence on the frequency of falling and rising tunes

as two basic tunes of the language of English

5.2 To language user-learners and teachers

Teachers and leamers always desire for a guideline to perceive and

appropnately use intonation as a (ool for conveymg commurucalive messages,

Therefore, the expected findings of the study, the frequency of falling and rising

tunes and the correlation belween the tune choice and syntactic features of the

intonation units are hopelully supposed to

- promote the awareness of language teachers and Iearners as users of

English about the need to understand and use these tones in communication

- offer a helping hand in deciding the tone choice as speakors aud understanding the message as listeners

6 ORGANISATION OF THE STUDY

‘The thesis is composed with 3 main parts

Part onc: Introduction states the reasous for conducting research, the aims

of the study along with the research questions as well as the method of doing sesearch, the scope of the study and the organization of this current report

Part two: Development includes two chapters

in chapter one: Literature Review, some theories related to intonation and

the framework for this study will be discussed Then, the previous research

related to intonation would be reviewed in order to show the research gap and the

need to conduct this work

‘The second chapter- ‘the study is the main core of this research paper There are two sections: Methodology and Data Analysis & Discussion

Section 1- Methodology once again highlights the research questions The

data collection description and procedure are discussed in detailed here, followed

with the analytical framework for the current study

Section 2: Data Analysis & Discussion presents the research results which

inclade the frequency of falling and rising, tumes in the corpus of the interview

extracts and the correlation between these two tunes with the syntactic structure

of the utterances In this chapter, the researcher also discusses the answers to the

posed research questions and provides a comparison between the findings of the current study with the previous study

Part three: Conclusion summarizes the main contents of the research paper — what has been done throughout the research Implications, limitations of the research along with suggestions for further studies are also proposed

findings along with discussion sessions concerning the results achieved above

CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW

‘The Literature Review chapter would be divided into two main part:

Theoretical background and Previous Research In the former part, the writer tries to make a sketch of intonation with the relevant studies on tune and

Intonation Yhe Definition, Components, Intonation Unit, Basic ‘Tunes,

Importance of Intonation together with Iunctions of Intonation would be

presented in tum Altogether, this part provides a framework for the research

‘The latter one is supposed to point out the understanding situation related to the studied topic, the frequency of falling and rising tumes and the correlation

‘between these tunes and the grammatical structures of the utterances Then, this

situation description and analysis would lead to the identification of the gaps and

the needs for the current study

1.1 TUEOREOTICAL BACKGROUND

1.1.1 Pitch

In natural speeches, it’s rarely true that people speak with a level,

monotonous voice, no matter what language they are speaking “Only in very

unusual situations do we speak with fixed, unvarying pitch, and when we speak,

normally the pitch of our voice is constantly changing "(Roach, 1991)

Therefore, it is essential to start with the term of ‘pitch’ to subsequently define

‘une’ ar] ‘intonalion.

According to Iayes (2009:291), “pitch can be considered as a purely

physical phenomenon: the vocal cords can vibrate faster or slower, resulting acoustically in higher or lower fundamental frequency Frequency is measured in hertz (IIz, cycles per second), and is easily measured and visualized with pitch-

tracking equipment.”

So, pitch refers to the rate of vibration of the vooal cords (Megdad, 2012 cited Hyman, 2007) Roach (2009) also claims that “Pitch is an auditory sensation” Ina broad sense, pitch would be nearly all vibrating sounds that can

be identified from a musical instrument or a vowel produced by human voice Thus, English language consists of a number of voiceless sounds which “cannot

give rise lo a sensation of pitch im this way.”

Another important feature to bear in mind relating to ‘pilch’ is hal pitch yange is am individual possession, which means that a high pilch of a person with low-pitched voice may be a low pitch of another with a high-pitched voice To get the appropriale inlerpretation of pitch changes in one’s vaice, it’s advisable

to look at the pitch movement within the whole pitch range of a certain

individual

1.1.2 Tune Hayes (2009, 294) mentions a central idea in intonation analysis which

involve text and tune “he text is simply the words we are saying, conveyed through vowels, consonants, stress and phrasing ‘he tune is the pitch pattem

with which the words are said l'or the analysis of tune, we introduce here the

concept of a tone, or more precisely, a tonal auto-segment A tone is like a phonological segment, except that its content specifies only pitch features.”

Roach (2009) restricts the meaning of the term “tone” in phonetics and

phonology as follows: “it refers to an identifiable movement or level of pitch that

is used in a linguistically contrastive way in some languages (known as tone languages) the linguistic function of tone is to change the meaning of a word In other languages, tone forms the central part of intonation, and the difference between, for example a rising and falling tone on a particular word may cause a

different interpretation of the sentence in which it occurs.”

It is necessary to highlight that in this study, tune refers to the pitch

pattern covering an utterances while tone point to the pitch clinging to a certain

syllable in the utterance

1.1.3 Intonation Intonation refers to the patterning of pitch changes in utterances (Snow, 2002) Cruttenden (1986), quoted by Megdad (2012) equates intonation particularly with pitch movement while Coulthard (1992) identifies it with prosody in general which would therefor include pitch movement but also loudness, length, speed, and even voice quality Roach (2009) adds another important feature of intonation, which is known as prominence It is defined as the tendency for speakers to make some syllables more noticeable than others, accomplished by pronouncing them louder and longer, by assigning them a different pitch, or by articulation the phonemes (especially the vowel) mare

distinctly Prominence is also sometimes referred to as cmphasis, focus, man

sires, nucleus or onic accent

1.1.4, Basic tunes of intonation There stands a colourtul picture when it comes to the number of times

{ypes it Bniglish language O’Connor and Amold (1973) and Cruttenden (1969)

are cited by Oladipupe (2010) as propose two basic tunes: fume 1 fall (including high-fall and low-fall) and tune 2 — rise (including high-rise and low- xise) Crystal and Ladefoged in Celie (2001) identify four basic ones: rise, fall- rise, fall and rise-fall Brazil ct al (1980) and Roach (1991) endorse five: fall, rise, rise-fall, fall-rise and level The standard distinction in this umut 1s taken from Roach (1991) with five basic tunes of English

1.1.5, Functions of Intonation

Regardless to some slight differences in the tenns assigned to the set of intonation functions, there would be mentioned four main functions of intonation, according to Roach (1991), including: attitudinal function, accentual function, grammatical function and discourse function Intonation has attitudinal functions, which is proved with the fact that “intonation is used to convey our feelings and attitudes which may be labeled ‘angry, happy, grateful, bored’, and so on” In terms of grammatical function, there are two cases in which intonation asserts its grammatical function (i) ta indicate grammatical structure

to the listener and (ii) to define if the utterance is a statement or a question

() To indicate grammatical structure to the listener

As a matter of fact, IU boundaries tend to occur between grammatical

units of higher order than words In sentences with a more complex structure,

TUs boundaries are normally found at the boundaries between phrases and

clauses Thus, IU division serves as an wudicaion for grammatical structure of an

utterance Furthermore, in situations of meaning ambiguity due to the complex structure of the sentences, intonation can be of great help for the listener to correctly infer the message of the speakers Far example

(a) The Conservatives who Vlike the proposal are \pleased

(b) The ConVservatives who Vlike the proposal are \pleased

The intonation distinguish between the (a)restrictive and (b) non- restrictive relative clauses (a) implies that only some Conservatives like the proposal whereas (b) implies that all Conservatives like it

(i) To define if the utterance is a statement or a question

This sub-function relates to the choice of tone on the tonic syllable In English, like several other languages, speakers can simply chonge a statement into a question by changing the tone from falling to rising For inslanee

(a) The ]price is going up

(a) isa

but it’s acceptable to ask a question:

lemme wilh the use of falling tone on the tonic syllable ‘price’

Why do you want to buy it now? (b) The price is going “up

‘The intonation of question-tags is also quoted as an iltustration for

changes im the meanings doce to the differences in tones Let’s have a look at an

pair of example:

(c) They are coming on \Tuesday| \aren’t they

(4) They are coming on \Puesday| /aren’t they|

in (c), with the falling tone on the question tag, the implication is that the speaker is quite certain about the validity of the information while in (d) when xising tone is used, the speaker is thought to be less certain about the information,

Roach (1991) also argue that accentual function involves the placement of

tonic stress within the tone umt as a part of intonation The location of the tonic

syllable is of considerable linguistic importance.” The most common position for this is on the last lexical word while for contrastive purposes, any word may become the tonic syllable For example

(i) I want to know where he’s travelling to (the word ‘ to’ being a

preposition and not a lexical word, is not stressed)

(i) I don't want to know where he's travelling V from.(the word

“from” contrast to ‘to’ and is stress for contrast)

According to Roach (2001), two main areas are identified while studying

intonation im the relauon with discourse First, the use of intonation lo focus the

listener's attention on the aspect of the message is the most important; secondly,

the regulation of conversational behavior

Aciually, the two functions of accentual function and discourse function

do overlap to a large extent and is said to be better grouped into one, while the

attitudinal function and grammatical function also refer to the same thing in a

wide range of situations

Halliday (1994: 296-299) mentions three fimetions’ grammatical,

informational an attitudinal Tench (1996) discusses three functions of intonation: G) to refleck the sialns of the mformalion comaimed im an intomtalion unit (ot tone unit/group), (ii) to fulfill the communicative function of an

ullerance, ic lo indieale whether a speaker is telling or asking, commanding or

requesting, cle., (iii) Lo express the altitude

To put all into a nutshell of functions of mionation, there may be

presented three major functions: attitudinal function, grammatical function, and

of speech Such a unit is described with a “fairly clearly-defined intemal structure”, with a compulsory Tonic Syllable, which “carries a tone and has a high degree of prominence” A tonic syllable not only carries a tone (which is something related to intonation) but also a type of stress that will be called tonic stress.” Some research also uses nucleus and nuclear stress for tonic syllable and

tonic stress The tone-unit structure is completed with the optional components,

including Ilead, Pre-Iead and Tail The head, which is “all that part of tone-unit that extends from the first stressed syllable (but not including) the tonie syllable

If there is not stressed syllable before the tonic syllable, there cannot be a ITead.” (Roach, 1998, p.281), The Pre-head is composed of all the unstressed syllables in

a tone-unit preceding the first stressed syllable Any syllables between the Tonic

syllable and the end of the tone-unit are called the Tail

Other definitions of intonation unit also look at the pitch movement which

makes up its core feature Reed, 2009 quotesCruttenden (1997) as providing a

“good example” of the definition of the “intonation-group”

“THis internal criteria for defining a stretch of speech as an intonation-

aroup include firstly the existence of at least one stressed syllable: and secondly

pitch movement on, to, or from that stressed syllable External criteria for

identifying inlouation-groups are those that defme potential boundaries one such criterion is a potential pause following an intonation-group Cither external

crileria include anacrusis, that is, fast delivery of unstressed syllable; lengthening

of the final syllable; and a potential change in the pitch direction of any unstressed syllables from one intonation-group lo the next.”

While the theory of tone unit concerns the internal phonological structure (Tonic syllable, Head, Pre-hoad,

research on pitch changes and pauses on unit boundaries, the current study put

3, intonation group terms are derived (rom

forwards the need for a unit which is clearly-defined with unit boundaries and

syntactic structure to answer the queslions of frequency and correlation between

the sentence types and tunes Therefore, in this study, the term ‘intonation unit’ would be adopted The main criteria to identify each mtonation unit is the presence of pauses at borders of each unit,

1.1.6.2 Syntactic structures of IU

‘The classification of syntactic structures of IU in this study was adopted from Iwasaki (1996) with five categorics: Simplex clause (SC), Complex Clause (CC), Part of Clause (PC), Isolated word and phrase, and Others Due to the space limitation, only the correlation between Simplex Clause and Complex Clause with falling and rising tunes would be examined

‘This part of definitions is taken from Iwasaki (1996 } but not the examples

(a) Simplex Clauses (SC) contain minimally an overt predicate, One or more argument (3) or adjunct (s) without clausal modification may appear For example:

(2) I went to school

(2).Do you know wt?

(b) Complex Clauses (CC) There are a tentative classification of four

subtypes:

CC: Paratactic construction: This construction combines two or more

simple clauses paratactically The two (or more) events depicted in this

construction are relatively independent of each other, as evidenced by different

subjects, aspectual markings , polarities associated with different clauses, and/or

an intervening conjunction For example:

(3) Oh, I quickly ran to the bedroom and he enter the room right after that

CC2; Serial construction: This construction is similar Lo parataclic construction but what is expressed in this construction is conceived as one event Structurally spoaking, the two seriahved verbs are not idependently marked

wilh aspectual and other verbal information Causative, passive and purpose

constructions are considered ag serial consiruchons For mstanec

(4) She put on her coat, took the bag, and walked out of the room

CC3: Hypatactic construction: CC3 consists ofa dependent (adverbial) clause and the main clause Examples of CC3 are quite abundant

(5) Although they had prepared quite carefilly before the storm, the damage was still too big

(6) When you left, you brought ail the good things with you

CC4: Complement and relative constructions: Complement

construction is a construction with a verb which take the complement For

instance:

(7) He said (that) you had already moved out of the building

A relative clause may appear as part of a simplex or complex clause

(8) The girl who lives next door is a doctor

(© Part of a clause (PC)

An IU is recognized as part of a clause when it combines with the nex IL’

to create a complete clause If the second IU in this case can be considered

independent, then it is coded as SC or CC The following one is an example:

(9) 7 don’t think | (the man is pood enough for this job)

An IU is also considered as part of a clause when it is the sccond part of a serial construction following the first part, or when it is a prepositional plrase which accompanies a verb in the preceding [U, such as

(10) (Lle calmly sat down) in front of the director

(11) (Lhe policeman opened the door) | walked into the room

(d) Words and phrases: isolated words and phrases which are not part of

a clause are classified as one category

(6) Others: In this group are included backchannel expressions, reactive token, fragmental 1U, laughter tokens and other miscellaneous tokens

1.1.7 Sentence types in SC and CC [Us

Tor the analysis of correlation between falling and rising tunes and syntactic structures, in this study, the researcher isolated SCs and CCs as IUs which can stand independently as a complete sentence The sentence types are

mentioned as subtype of SC and CC Hasselgird, H et al (2012) revises

sentence types in English with three types: declarative (marked by the word

order $1V), yes‘no interrogative (marked by the word order VS), wh-

interrogative (marked by the word order wh-wordIV (1S), and imperative

(marked by the word order V, with the verb in the imperative, and usually ne

subject)

1.1.7.1 Declarative sentence

A type of sentence (or, strielly speaking, a clause) in which the word

order (in English) is S-V-X, with X symbolizing any element [hal may follow the verbal (object/predicative/obligatory adverbial) The typical communicative

function of a declarative sentence is a slalcment, aldhough declaralives may also

have other functions For example

John pressed the bulton

beginning of the sentence, and is followed by the finite verb Unless the wh- word has the syntactic function of subject, the word order of a wh -interrogative

is as follows: wh-word: finite auxiliary subject | verbal For example

Why did you want to study English?

Af the wh-word functions as subject, the word order of the wh- interrogative is simply: wh-word (=subject) + verbal Kor example:

Who wants a second-hand grammar book?

1.1.7.4, Imperative

A sentence type typically used to make commands Kor example:

Sit down Give an analysis of this poem

An imperative sentence typically contains no grammatical subject, but the implied subject is 'you' Sometimes a subject may be included, particularly in

uegative imperatives such as: Don't you dare touch that switch Sentences such

as Let's get out of here! Let's go! where the implied subject includes the speaker

as well as the hearer(s), are also referred to as imperative

1.2 PREVIOUS RESEARCH

1.2.1 Research on the frequency of the basic tunes

There is not much research done on the topic of relative frequency of asic tunes in English language A small piece of information on this topic that the author encountered was found in the paper ‘The communicative value of the

tone system of English’ by Tench (1995:4) IIe claims that

‘usually between half and two-third of all tones are falls Prepared or xehearsal discourse has a relatively high proportion of rises, which demonstrates

the planning of incomplete information with complete, but even so, half the tones

are falls; a higher proportion of falls is found in unprepared unrehearsed speech,

up lo 65%.’

However, Tench(l996) does not provide any figures illustrated this

stalcmncrt

Similarly, the author cannot find any literature on the frequency of other

tunes int English

1.2.2 Research on the correlation between lunes and syntactic

interrogative and exclamatory sentence types and final falimg er rising intonation (Couper-Kuhlen and Selting 1996)

Other researchers compromised with similar _ generalizations accompanying a number of exceptions Take one example, [uymh (2012) takes a

look into the question intonation patterns in real-life conversations and textbook

dialogs and conelude about the efficiency of the textbook in preparing the

students with intonation use in real-life situation What she find outs about the

question intonation patterns in real-life conversations and textbook oan be surunarized in the following table

conversation Wh-question intonation patterns Rising-Falling Rising-Falling

Falling-Rising

Or questions intonation pattems Rising-Falling Rising-Falling

Yes/No questions intonation patterns Falling-Rising Ealling-Rising

‘Terminal falling pitch Statomnent us questions intonation Torminal rising pitch | Terminal rising pitch

McCarthy (1991:106) is quoted by Medgag (2012) as admitting the

popularily of the ufitization of grammatical infonation, espe

ally among wach

who widely believe that there are ‘correct’ intonations for sentence strictures,

such as declarative sentence

questions, tag questions, cíc Thua, yes2No

questions typically go with rising tones, and the wh-inlerrogatives with falling

tones However, McCarthy do admit that there’s more cvidenes to suggest thal

there is “no one-to-one relationship belween sentence type and Lone.”

In short, despite the richness of studies on the issue of intonation patterns and grammatical types of ullerances therc’s slill a need for more empirical evidence to approach an agrecment on the questions of the correlation between

the two variables, This study routs from that need as well as the personal demand

of the writer as an English teacher to deepen the understanding of intonation as the target language in her carcer

CHAPTER TWO: THE STUDY

2.1, METHODOLOGY

This main purpose of this section is to provide a sketch of the research

with the emphasis on the two research questions in the first sub-section After

presenting the research problems, there follows a description of the selected

research objects along with the justification behind the object choice Last but

not least, the analytical framework adopted in this current paper would be

highlighted

2.1.1, Research Questions

Ta this very imlial research effort into the inloualion umbrella, the current

paper would aim to find the answer (o the question of the Irequency of falling

and rising Lumes in talk-shows ou American media Moreover, the relative

relationship between these two kinds of tunes with sentence types in English language would be examined in the selevted interviews Therelore, this research

is on the lookout for the answer of two following research questions

1 How frequently axe falling and rising tunes used in the selected

interviews from the Ellen Show?

2 Is thore a comelation between the falling and rising tunes and sentence types at the level of intonation unit? [f yes, how is the correlation realized?

2.1.2 Data collection

‘As mentioned previously, the data for this study is collected from ten excerpts of the interviews from the American television talk show The Hilen DeGeneres Show, or the Uilen Show as the original name The talk show is

hosted by comediayactress HHen DeGeneres, debuting on September 8, 2003,

and has been increasingly popular with American The show has reached considerable success with 33 Daytime Jimmy awards as of 2011 because of the richness and creativity in the episodes The audience can enjoy a combination of comedy, celebrity, musical guests and human-interest stories There’s a surprisingly wide range of celebrities having, making their tum as guests on the Billen show, from very famous singer Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber to popular

actors and actress such as Robert Pattison and Kristen Stewart and even the

President of The United States, Barack Obama and his First Lady The appeal of

the program not only roots in the appearance of well-known artist and politicians

on the show but also some of very special elements For instance, non-celebrities

are also featured in 715 minutes of fame’ part of (he program Guests of this role

16

vary from intelligent or funny children, or small business owners, or sometimes

nomal people becoming famous with a popular video clip on the website

Youtube.com or other Internet website The diversity of the guests in the

program creates an ideal environment to carry a research on the use of intonation

as a functional tool for communication in international real-life context

The selected interviews for the study are from the ‘Most popular’ videos stored on the official website of the Show

http:/Avww.youtube.comv/user/ThelillenShow/videos Due to the variety of

activities in the episodes, the extracts with more time spending on interviewing

would be chosen All of 10 selected excerpls are marked with more than 4

million views on the website Youtube.com The following table shows the

summary on the length of the excerpts, the participants and some background

information about them,

and aclress She was in the public relationship with Justin Bicber at the

Justin JustingBieber is also a popular Bieber! Canadian pop musician, actor and

singer-songwriter The relationship is

avery hot topic for media at that time

2 5:02 Hair Tori Locklear Tori is a thirteen-year-old gnl from

Wrong tried to make a tutorial on hair

making-up but unfornately burned off her piece of hair Ullen invited her to

the show to interview her about the

experience

3 3:44 Tustin Justin Bieber Justin Bieber is a famous Canadian

Bieber Gets pop musician, actor and singer-

His 1s songwiiter, who is very popular in

Birthday America, He was invited to the show

Present on on his 18" birthday occasion and

the Show! umexpectedly got a birthday present

from his manager, Scooter Braun

4 3:02 Rob and Enisten Ensten Steward, Robert Pattison,

Kristen's Steward, Taylor Lantner co-starred im the

Baby- Robert ‘Twilight Saga, of which the last

making Pattison, installment Breaking Dawn was

17

Scene was, Taylor launched a short time before The

4 3:44 | Kristen Kristen Bell Kristen Anne Bell is an American

Bell’s sloth actress and film producer She was

Meltdown, interviewed about a special birthday

present from her boyfriend by Ellen afler a video of her crying when recoiving ihe gifl posted on the

Youtube cont,

6 241 Selena Selena Gomez Selena Gomez is an American artist

Gomez on and aclress She was in the public Justin telationship with Justin Bicher af (hs

JuslingBicber is also a4 popular Canadian pop musician, actor and singer-songwriter The relationship is

a very hol lopie for media al that lire

7 2:55 | Katy Perry | Katy Perry Katheryn Elizabeth "Katy" Hudson

and Tlen (bom October 25, 1984), beller known

Play Taboo by her stage name Katy Perry, is an

American singo, — songwri

womwm, philanthropist, and

She was bom and raised

in Santa Barbara, California

8 9:35 | Bion Scares | Julia Roberls Julia Fiona Raberis (born October 28,

Julia 1967) is an American actress, She was

Roberts inviled as a surprise gift for the host of

Backstage the show, Ellen, on her 53th birthday

9 3:40 | Anne Anne Ame Jacqueline Hathaway (bom

Uathaway | Liathaway November 12, 1982) is an American

have som fim!

10 2:10 | KaleyCuoco | KaleyCuoco Kaley Christine Cuoco bơm

Bought a Movember 30, 1985) is an American

Shake actress She was invited Lo the show

Weight! and the inlerview spun around the

funny itor Ul sho boughl before