Click here to listen to ‘Tone and Intonation? Tone and Intonation!’
Spoken languages can change the pitch or melody of words to convey several different kinds of information. When the pitch affects the meaning of the whole phrase, such as rising to indicate a question in English, linguists call it intonation. When the pitch affects the meaning of an individual word, such as the difference between mother (high mā) and horse (low rising mǎ) in Mandarin, linguists call it tone.
In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about tone, intonation, and the combination of the two. We talk about various meanings of intonation, such as question, list, floor-holding, emphasis, enthusiasm, and sarcasm, and how different languages use different shapes of intonation contours for functions like these. We also talk about things languages do with tones, from changing meanings of individual words to indicating grammatical information like negation. Finally, we talk about the many, many options for writing tone and intonation (from highly technical proposals to fun internet creations), how tone interacts with lyrics/melody in songs, and how “high” versus “low” tone is actually a culturally-specific metaphor – could we start calling tones “thin” and “thick” or “big” and “small” instead?
Announcements:
In this month’s bonus episode originally recorded as a liveshow on the Lingthusiasm patron Discord server, your host Gretchen gets enthusiastic about how languages do gender with special guest Dr. Kirby Conrod. We answer your questions about lots of things related to language and gender, including: gender-neutral versions of sir/ma'am and dude/bro, why linguistic gender even exists, how people are doing gender-neutral and nonbinary things across related languages, and how neopronouns are often made by recycling bits from a language's canonical pronouns.
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Here are the links mentioned in the episode:
Original tumblr post on New Internet Grammar question marks from @pervocracy
Formal definitions of tone and intonation from the Routledge handbook
Gender Reveal episode on the social dynamics of pitch and other features with regard to gender
Falling question intonation in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi and Hawaiʻi Creole English
All Things Linguistic post on transfer features of our intonation into writing
‘Tone’ by Moira Yip, for information on prevalence of tone in the worlds languages
All Things Linguistic post on understanding tone as a non-tone language speaker
Zhao Yuanren/Yuen Ren Chao, such a cool Chinese linguist (he also translated Jabberwocky! and gave his daughter the name Lensey, which contains the only two syllables that are possible in the Chinese language but not actually present in any no Chinese words, thus making her name impossible to write properly in Chinese. Just like, please go read his Wikipedia article.)
ChinesePod Blog post ‘How to read a Chinese poem with only one sound’
‘High Tone Docking in Sierra Juárez Zapotec’ by Lee Bickmore and George Aaron Broadwell
‘The tone system of the Luanyjang dialect of Dinka’ by Bert Remijsen and D. Robert Ladd
‘Tone and intonation: A case study in two Tibetic languages’ by Teo, A., L. Gawne and M. Baese-Berk
HK Magazine post ‘Ask Mr. Know-It-All: How do you sing in a tonal language like Cantonese?’
Other relevant Lingthusiasm episodes:
Lingthusiasm episode ‘Why spelling is hard — but also hard to change’
Lingthusiasm episode ‘Making books and tools speak Chatino - Interview with Hilaria Cruz’
Lingthusiasm episode ‘What words sound spiky across languages? Interview with Suzy Styles’
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Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.
Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.
Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, and our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.
Here’s the link again to ‘Tone and Intonation? Tone and Intonation!’
Thanks for listening, and stay Lingthusiastic!
Lauren & Gretchen