Prof. Pedro L.

Luchini

A Brief Comparison Between the Attitudinal Approach of OConnor

and Arnold, and Brazils Communicative Approach
An adaptation of a summary of a paper presented in a Seminar in Phonology at the
Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana (author unknown)
ATTITUDINAL MEANING OF INTONATION
Many of the best-known descriptions of English intonation in the past have
regarded the attitudinal function as primary and central, i.e. OConnor and Arnold, for
example. The main part OConnor and Arnolds work was dedicated to the attitudinal
meaning of intonation, i.e. attitude which can be detected in a speakers voice: whether
the speaker is angry, or civil, or grumpy, or enthusiastic. They ascribed different
meanings to various patterns; for example, something is categorical, weighty, judicial or
considered, or it can be impressed, awed, complacent, self-satisfied, challenging,
censorious, disclaiming responsibility.
In their approach to teaching English intonation OConnor and Arnold presented
ten different tone groups. They used different tunes, different patterns of pitch, for
grammatical purposes:
1-The Low Drop (low fall)
In Statements: with no head, detached, cool, dispassionate, reserved, dull, possibly grim
or surly; with a high head, categorical, weighty, judicial, considered.
In WH-Questions: with no head, detached, flat, unsympathetic, even hostile,; with a high
head, searching, serious, intense, urgent.
In Yes/No Questions: with no head ( in tags used as independent comments),
uninterested, hostile, with a high head, serious urgent.
In Commands: with no head, unemotional, calm, controlled, cold; with a high head, very
serious, very strong.
In Interjections: with no head, calm, unsurprised, reserved, self-possessed; with a high
head, very strong.
2- The High Drop (high fall)
In Statements: conveying a sense of involvement, light, airy.
In WH-Questions: brisk, businesslike, considerate, not unfriendly, lively, interested.
In Yes/No Questions: willing to discuss but not urgently, sometimes skeptical; (in
question tags used as independent comments) mildly surprised acceptance of the
listeners premises.
In Commands: suggesting a course of action and not worrying about being obeyed.
In Interjections: mildly surprised, not so reserved or self-possessed as with the Low
Drop.

3- The Take Off (low rise with a low head)

In Statements: encouraging further conversation, guarded, reserving judgment,
appealing to the listener to change to change his mind, deprecatory, (in contradictions)
resentful; in on final word groups, deprecatory.
In WH-Questions: with the nuclear tone on the interrogative word, wondering, mildly
puzzled; otherwise, very calm but very disapproving and resentful.
In Yes/No Questions: disapproving and skeptical.
In Commands: (beginning with Dont ) appealing to the listener to change his mind; (in
a few short commands) calmly warning, exhortative.
In Interjections: sometimes reserving judgment, sometimes calm, casual
acknowledgment.
4- The Low Bounce (low-rise)
In Statements: soothing, reassuring, hint of great-self-confidence and self-reliance; (in
echoes) questioning with a tone of surprise an disbelief; (in on-final word groups)
creating expectancy about what is to follow.
In WH-Questions: with the nuclear tone on the interrogative word, puzzled; (in echoes)
disapproving; otherwise, sympathetically interested.
In Yes/No Questions: genuinely interested.
In Commands: soothing, encouraging, calmly patronizing.
In Interjections: airy, casual yet encouraging, often friendly, brighter than when said the
Take-Off.
5- The Switchback (the fall-rise)
In Statements: grudgingly admitting, reluctantly or defensively dissenting, concerned,
reproachful, hurt , reserved, tentatively suggesting; (in echoes) greatly astonished.
In Questions: (in echoes) greatly astonished; otherwise, interested and concerned as
well as surprised.
In Commands: urgently warning with a note of reproach or concern.
In Interjections: scornful.
6- The Long Jump (high fall with a low rising head)
In Statements: protesting, as if suffering under a sense of injustice.
In WH-Questions: protesting, somewhat unpleasantly surprised.
In Yes-No Questions: willing to discuss but protesting the need for settling a crucial point.
In Commands: recommending a course of action but with a note of critical surprise.
In Interjections: protesting, surprised.
7- The High Bounce (high rise)
In Statements: questioning, trying to elicit a repetition, but lacking any suggestion of
disapproval or puzzlement; (in non-final word groups) casual and tentative.
In WH-Questions: with the nuclear tone on the interrogative word, calling for a repetition
of the information already given; with the nuclear tone following the interrogative word,
either echoing the listeners question before going on to answer it or (in straightforward,
non-echo questions) tentative, casual.
In Yes/No Questions: either echoing the listeners question or (in straightforward, nonecho questions) light and casual.
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In Commands and interjections: querying all or part of the listeners command or

interjection, but with no critical intention.
8- The Jackknife (the rise-fall)
In Statements: impressed, awed, complacent, self-satisfied, challenging, censorious,
disclaiming responsibility.
In WH-Questions: challenging, antagonistic, disclaiming responsibility.
In Yes/No Questions: impressed, challenging, antagonistic.
In Commands: disclaiming responsibility, sometimes hostile.
In Interjections: impressed, sometimes a hint of accusation.
9- The High Dive
In Statements: appealing to the listener to continue with the topic of conversation;
expressing gladness, regret, surprise.
In Questions: very emotive, expressing plaintiveness, despair, gushing warmth.
In Commands: pleading, persuading.
In interjections: intensely encouraging, protesting.
10- The Terrace (mid-level tone)
In all sentence types: (in non-final word groups) marking non-finality without conveying
any impression of expectancy.
In Statements and Interjections: (in final word groups) calling out to someone as from a
distance.
According to Tench (1996:112), they thus have an intonational lexicon of twenty
patterns, each of which has a range of meanings. For all the patterns, however, different
ranges of meaning can be ascribed to statements, wh-questions, yes/no questions,
commands and interjections. He concludes that the range of different meanings seems
so wide that it may actually be too wide to posses any general sense.
According to Roach (1996:45), the claim that we use intonation to express our
attitudes is fundamentally wrong. He then adds that work by phoneticians on emotions
and attitudes in speech has tended to have a rather simplistic view of the subject, and it
has become perhaps rather commonplace among phonology teachers to quote some of
the ...more speculative and unscientific statements which were made by OConnor and
Arnold (Roach, ibid.).
As Tench (1996) points out, many of the supposedly attitudinal functions of
intonation, which have been suggested by earlier writers, are in fact better viewed as
interactional. We therefore need studies to show how people use what we usually think
of as emotional or attitudinal expression in order to achieve some interactional result, for
instance sounding reluctant to agree, sounding friendly, sounding doubtful (Roach:
48).
On the other hand, even Roach seems to believe that there is a place for attitude
after all. Emotions, he says, typically make themselves evident in spite of the
speakers attempts to control themwhile attitudes are usually deliberately displayed
(Roach: ibid.) which takes into account Couper-Kuhlens proposition that emotions
should be regarded as related to the speakers inner state, while attitude relates to the
speakers observable behaviour.
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In the past, the attitudinal function of intonation was the main feature of intonation
model taught to students of English as a foreign language. The students were even
taught that using inappropriate or wrong intonation pattern in a certain social
environment might result in offense being taken by a person spoken to. Such a view, for
obvious reasons, probably caused a lot of anxiety in learners of English.
According to Couper-Kuhlen (1996), emotions, just like facial expressions or other
body language, make themselves evident in spite of a speaker s attempts to control
them. On the other hand, attitudes are usually deliberately displayed. Given that they are
intentionally shown to influence or even manipulate people, claims Roach (1996:48),
they should have no place in the teaching of intonation.
Other descriptions of English intonation, including the work by David Brazil, have
made the organisation of information and discourse central, but have nevertheless
acknowledged the additional component of attitude.
DISCOURSE INTONATION AND THE COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH
Discourse intonation (DI) is a theory of intonation which relates stress, tone, and
pitch height to categories of meaning. Discourse intonation, as proposed by David
Brazil, attempts to make the simplest possible description, and it attempts to adopt the
language users, not the linguists perspective: contextual factors are of paramount
importance, and the speakers perceptions are central. Brazil (1985:238) claims that
there is a need for stating the communicative value of intonation in terms of the
projected contextual implications of the tone unit: only if we regard intonation as a
situation-creating device, can we give proper recognition to its ability to carry
independent meanings. He also says that prominent syllables, like tones, are distributed
on the basis of what context of interaction the speaker chooses to project.
DI therefore does not aim to provide a link to categories of grammar, neither does it
attempt to establish links between attitude and intonation, but it offers a way of
accounting for them outside its own systems. Cauldwell and Hewings (1996:51) claim
that meanings like surprise, irony, sarcasm, grumpiness are therefore features of
particular contexts and are not attributable to any one choice, such as a high-falling tone.
Discourse intonation takes the stance that most speech is divided into tone units
which have either one or two prominences. Tone units may or may not be separated by a
pause. What is important is that there is only one tone in each tone unit: every tone must
be in a separate tone unit. DI accounts for four systems: prominence, tone, key and
termination, and the maximum number of choices on any one syllable is three.
Cadwell and Hewings made a table which illustrates that the last prominence in
each tone unit is the location of one of five tones recognised by discourse intonation: the
fall, the rise, the fall-rise, the rise-fall and the (mid) level. See table 1 below:

TABLE 1:
Meaning
Telling (dominant)
Telling
Referring
Referring (dominant)
Opt-out

System
code
p+
p
r
r+
o

shape

Realisation
description
rise-fall
fall
fall-rise
rise
mid level

According to Brazil, we choose one of the five or a certain combination. A

particular communicative value is associated with each of the tones in a way that holds
true for all occurrences of that tone.
Discourse intonation makes a basic distinction between telling, i.e. the proclaiming tone,
which is associated with the fall and rise-fall, and referring, associated with the rise
and fall-rise. The significance of the PROCLAIMING TONE, is that, by producing it, the
speaker offers to further the process by changing the hearers world. It is not yet present
in the common ground, the ground shared by a speaker and a hearer.
On the other hand, the REFERRING TONE is already present in the common
ground. Referring tone units can also be characterised negatively as those in which the
speaker recognises that they are saying nothing which will constitute a step further, i.e.
such a feature of discourse will in no way alter the state of speaker/hearer convergence.
However, Michael Vaughan-Rees (1996:61) proposed a distinction-table for the referring
and proclaiming tones in so far as he believes the fall-rise to indicate an aspect of
commonality between speaker and hearer; ..an excursion into assumed common
ground, rather than a step towards the greater convergence.. (Brazil:115).
TABLE 3:

Referring
associated with old / shared
information (previous text, the
situation, shared knowledge)
more is implied, more could be said
lifting a barrier, nearing, creating
solidarity

Proclaiming

associated with new information

no more needs saying; this part of the

message is complete

creating a barrier, distancing

Brazil says, however, that when asking questions, for instance, we can choose
either a fall (for seeking unknown information) or a fall-rise (for confirmation of what we
already believe). The result will be much the same whichever tone you use. It is very
common for people to behave as if they just needed confirmationwe quite often ask
questions in order to be friendly, rather than because the answer is of any real
importance, or even interest, to us (1994:41). Such statements clearly demonstrate an
attitudinal aspect in his writings, which will be addressed in the next section.
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References
OConnor, J. D. and Arnold, G. F. (1973) Intonation of Colloquial English, Longman
Group Ltd., Bristol, U.K.
Brazil, D. (1985) The Communicative Value of Intonation in English, English Language
Research, University of Birmingham, U.K.
--- (1994) Pronunciation for Advanced Learners of English, CUP, U.K.
Cauldwell, R. & Hewings, M. Discourse intonation and listening, in: Speak Out! Changes
in Pronunciation (Summer 1996), ed. Vaughan-Rees, M. , CUP, Cambridge, U.K.,
pp. 49-57.
Cruttenden, A. (1986, 1997) Intonation, CUP, Cambridge, U.K.
Jenner, B. Changes in objectives for pronunciation teaching, in: Speak Out! Changes in
Pronunciation (Summer 1996), ed. Vaughan-Rees, M. , CUP, Cambridge, U.K.,
pp. 41-45.
Roach, P. Emotions, attitudes and the English speaker, in: Speak Out! Changes in
Pronunciation (Summer 1996), ed. Vaughan-Rees, M., CUP, Cambridge, U.K., pp.
45-49.
Vaughan-Rees, M. Discourse Intonation: Extending the Definitions, in: Speak Out!
Changes in Pronunciation (Summer 1996), ed.Vaughan-Rees, M. , CUP,
Cambridge, U.K., pp. 57-62