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Intonation and meaning in conversation
Language&
Communication
Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 123-131, 1982.
0271-5309/82/024l12349$03.00/0
Printed in Great Britain.
INTONATION
Pergamon Press Ltd.
AND MEANING
IN CONVERSATION
GRAHAM MCGREGOR Within the traditions of intonational studies in both Britain and America, two extreme positions appear to have been taken up, as Brazil (1975, p. 2) neatly summarizes. “On the one hand, one may cite Bolinger’s (1958) dictum that encounters between grammar and intonation are ‘casual not causal’. On the other, Halliday (1967) argues that all meaning differences in language are referable to either lexis or grammar and, since English intonation is never lexical, the contrasts it realizes are to be taken into a grammar suitably elaborated to receive them.” I do not wish to argue about the appropriacy of the distinction ‘grammatical’ versus ‘attitudinal’, but tend to agree with Brazil that, ‘The formal features that are exploited in the service of these two functions are so closely related and so readily interchangeable, that it becomes difficult to believe in the validity of the distinction’ (1975, p. 2). For the moment let us focus on analytic approaches which attempt to specify the ‘attitudinal’ uses of intonation. Descriptions which attribute ‘meaning’ to a particular intonational feature, or set of features, are rooted in the traditions of text books used in second-language learning. Publications such as O’Connor and Arnold (l%l), for example, hope to provide the learner with useful generalizations concerning pitch variety and possible ‘attitudinal’ realizations.’ The difficulty of providing functional equivalents for nuclear tone types is paramount. Two major stumbling blocks in the study of the functions of intonational systems, suggest themselves: (1) the problem of contextual variation, and (2) the problem of ascribing generalized interpretative glosses to utterances. Crystal (1969, p. 294) notes, ‘What I consider to be the most important difficulty in the matter of the semantic analysis of intonation (is) . . . the problem of which descriptive labels to use to refer to the attitudinal effects being signalled by the prosodic and paralinguistic complexes’. In the absence of explicit criteria and an agreed semantic theory, the description of intonational meaning poses considerable theoretical and methodological problems for the analyst. I would suggest that attempts to explicate how our semantic interpretations are organized, whether on grammatical or attitudinal grounds, simply fail to take into account the contextual dynamic of interactive discourse. The selection of ‘appropriate’ labels as markers of ‘syntactic continuity’, or as reflections of speaker ‘doubt’ or ‘uncertainty’, are not helpful when we consider the possible range of meaning that any speaker can ‘intend’, or indeed that any hearer may ‘interpret’. Even if one insists upon a dual account of meaning, dependent on the interrelationship of grammatical and attitudinal roles (see, for example, Crystal 1975, 37ff.) the problem of labelling remains. It remains because analysts have insisted that there is for any utterance “a stable ‘core’ of meaning”. However, no matter the number of labels one chooses, or the degree of generalization one’s description encapsulates, the problems of discriminating between such fine distinctions as, ‘polite/respectful’; ‘doubt/hesitation’; ‘impressed/satisfied’, remain. 123
GRAHAM MCGREGOR
124
Can we as analysts guarantee that our interpretative glosses of prosodic features x to y, are functionally equivalent to some ‘meaning’ z, where z may not have been ‘intended’ by some speaker in some particular discourse? The nub of the problem lies in the importance analysts have ascribed to speakers as signallers of ‘meaning’. Brazil (1975) exemplifies my concern. He writes, ‘Centrally, the reference is to the speaker’s moment-by-moment assessment of the state of convergence at the time and place of speaking. By choosing one intonation pattern rather than another, he affects what any utterance does . . .’ (1975, p. 3). It may very well be the case that a speaker can ‘affect what any utterance does’ semantically, but the effect of that utterance is not recoverable simply from what that speaker says. In discourse a speaker is dependent on two things. Firstly, he is dependent on the recognition that an affect has been signalled, and secondly, he is dependent on the fact that the signal itself has been accorded some kind of interpretation. Both these notions are centrally bound to the process of ‘hearing’ and to the particular listening behaviour that is employed by speaker-hearers, in the moment-by-moment assessment of the form and function of turns of talk. Analysts such as Brazil, who claim that the ‘meaning’ of any utterance can be determined by examining the intonational options of any speaker-hearer, are guilty of basing their analyses more on the fiction than on the facts of discourse structure. The distinction between “. . . what an item ‘means’ as a lexico-grammatical construct and what it ‘does’ as a contribution in discourse” (Brazil 1975, p. 3) is both naive and unhelpful. If it were merely the case, as Brazil claims, that, “Once the functionally contrastive features have been identified and related to each other in a way which properly recognizes the various dimensions of function involved-once that is, we have established just what is in contrast with what-it is possible to provide a consistent characterization of the ‘meaning’ of each feature” (1975, p. 3), then the role of the hearer would simply be denied. We should then be left with the view that intonation is merely the realization of deep syntactic features, subject to all the implications of a rule-based transformational generative grammar. If we accept that a speaker, when in focused interaction with a hearer, uses prosodic systems to ‘transmit his affective states and attitudes . . . (specifies) the role to be attributed to syntactic structures; and . . . (indicates) the relative informational parts of his utterance’ (Pellowe and Jones 1978, p. lOl), then the question remains as to how we might model the mutually and uniquely determined ‘meanings’ exchanged by participants in dialogically structured discourses.* The establishment of mutually recognized bases upon which information is exchanged in conversational contexts is clearly a remarkably skilled form of social behaviour, depending on certain forms of knowledge and linguistic patterning (see McGregor, forthcoming). Conversation is a joint production and any product of the discourse per se is a product of the effort of speaker-hearers interpreting the ‘meaning’ of the other’s talk, in order to decide what to say next. The difficulties of determining the reciprocal ‘intentions’ of speaker-hearers in focused interaction are intrinsic to even the most banal kinds of talk. However, there is a way forward. Working on the premise that the informational content of speaker-hearer exchanges (the non-surface ‘intentions’ of participants in talk) is accessible to, and recoverable by, other native speakers, it ought to be possible to explore the active and effective means of achieving interpersonal communication in any given speech community. Folk-linguistic descriptions which reflect a hearer’s perceptions and knowledge of his language are a valid and important source of data (Hoenigswald 1966). To what extent
the analyst
can make
precise
use of the folk-linguistic
expertise
INTONATION
AND MEANING
IN CONVERSATION
125
of ‘naive’ hearers is a matter for some speculation. However, it is reasonable to assume that if a linguistic phenomenon is spoken about by native speakers, it is worth investigating. How might we proceed, then, to investigate the process of speech underst~ding, as it occurs in spontaneous exchanges of talk between individuals? The use of ‘eavesdropper’ informants has enabled me to examine the ways in which ‘naive’ hearers have responded to, and commented on, various taped extracts of talk. A major question to arise from this work was the problem of ascertaining the difference between how one perceives as an actual listener in a conversational situation, and how one perceives and attends to what one hears as an ‘eavesdropper’. This question cannot be explored in detail here (see McGregor, forthcoming). For the purpose of the present paper, I wish to restrict my discussion to the particular role, and reported recoverability, of prosodic and paralinguistic systems as perceived markers of the signalled ‘intentions’ of speaker-hearers involved in different conversational contexts. Six extracts of talk were played on different occasions to eight pairs of informants3 The informants were asked to listen to, and provide a commentary on, each of the extracts in turn. If the informants required further information on the nature of this verbal instruction, I pointed out the need not to bias what they ought to, or might, listen for. The only further information which I allowed was that any comments which they made would be welcome. It was not uncommon for informants to discuss the nature of the task between themselves. Indeed, they were encouraged to provide. their own set of assumptions and/or interpretations of what the task involved for them. Prior to the arrival of each pair in the room where the extracts were played, a second tape recorder was switched on, enabling me to recover any comments that were made. Informants were not notified that they had been recorded until they had finished discussing all six extracts. On replaying the commentaries, I was struck by the number of occasions my ‘eavesdropper’ informants made inferences relating to what was commonly described as ‘tone of voice’. Compare the following, for example: ‘Speaker A was not relaxed. He was very cagey, it’s in his tone of voice.’ ‘The first speaker sounded eager but hesitant. It came from the way he was saying things maybe his tone.’ ‘The tone of voice is important. There’s a sense of sorting things out. The tone reflects that nobody is posturing, trying to score over anybody else. Yet it’s all vaguely ironic.’ The kinds of information conveyed to ‘eavesdroppers’ by ‘tone of voice’ raised the question of how these interpretations or inferences were derived. Was there a relationship between the formal prosodic and paralinguistic contrasts realized by the participants in each extract and ‘eavesdroppers’ reported folk-linguistic perceptions of the use of different tones of voice? In order to examine the possibility that some tone of voice was effectively signalling either an affective state or attitude, or both, as well as indicating the relative informational importance of different parts of a speaker’s utterance, I set out to compare the formal prosodic contrasts realized in the extracts, with the commentaries I had taped. If we examine just two utterances which were commented on (the utterances are taken from a different data source), then we can begin to gain some insight into the sorts of listening behaviour ‘eavesdropper’ commentaries exemplified. A prosodic and paralinguistic
126
GRAHAM MCGREGOR
analysis of the featuress realized for each utterance relating to both utterances are also given. Utterance
is presented
below. Comments
1.
P? “‘ I&&l
I ‘mean ‘I’m’ I “/reckon
I’m FAIRLY
sick of
” ‘dimin slurred rhythmic”’
‘Slurred’ “rhythmic low” \N
! if I HAD this
“IGbRMANf
I&‘:
-1;ou
S&E’/ 11; hours a [V&K]
N& [ADM\&
‘precise’ “‘spiky high precise”’
“rail low” ,I, ! N b THING
being broke”‘-but,
-
‘I jmean (its) a DR BN AM (I can’t) lwhose
REALIZATION
. .
(I can’t).
‘creak’
Informants’comments. (1) ‘He drops his voice. He’s mumbling. It seems quieter.’ (2) ‘His voice sounds dreamy as if he’s living it. The voice falls after each thing with a little pause in between.’ (3) ‘He sounded very tired, much lower than usual.’ (4) ‘He leaves out words. He’s thinking about what he’s saying, searching for words. The voice gets quieter. ’ (5) ‘There’s a lot of false starts and errors. He’s usually quite precise. Sounded a bit pissed to me. ’ (6) ‘There’s no need for him to complete things. There is a sense in which he feels it isn’t quite happening for him. It’s unreal.’ Utterance
2. ‘IDAAR otd EMMg/“y
know the P&?TMAN
Istuffed
“low rhythmic”
‘laugh’
the ST%F
through
‘monot’
-
on ‘her [M%gSTYS](
“‘tense husky crest”’ ..>,
L“‘
‘high’
.>>3 -
‘creak’ -i&‘RAT-
‘S@R~;
the
she couldn’t
UNDERST&?D
my
I REACTION
at IAALp
she said
(
““lax nas alleg gliss”” -1
but its :“not
‘nas’
the Q&EN
who/takes
your !tax A6Aq:is
[fs
‘alleg’
Informants’comments. (1) ‘There’s amusement. It starts off quietly. He captures her intonation by imitating her. I doubt if the imitation is accurate. It’s his own interpretation of it. He was trying to capture the feeling that O.H.M.S. was something spedal for her.’ (2) ‘He laughs on O.H.M.S. There’s unspoken agreement that this is naive and amusing.’
INTONATION
AND MEANING
127
IN CONVERSATION
(3) ‘The interaction livens up with Emma’s story. His voice rises as he starts to laugh (informant imitates, ‘It’s not the Queen’).’ (4) ‘When he talks about Emma he’s much more animated.’ (5) “The story relates that something funny has happened. ‘Stuffed the stuff through’ is said in a sort of staccato, as if he had something stuck in his throat. His attitude here is different from the rest. The humour is totally informal. It breaks the ice-we are good mates let’s have a laugh.” (6) “ ‘Dear old Emma’ sounds awful kind of drunk.” (7) ‘The conversation is split in two halves. The subject fizzles out at the anecdote about the tax claim. It becomes much more casual.’ If we compare ‘eavesdropper’ commentaries with actual prosodic realizations, it is clear that there is a very marked contrast in perceptions of the speaker’s attitude from one part of the exchange to the other. In Utterance 1, the co-occurrence of the features ‘low’ (pitch range), ‘diminuendo’ (loudness), ‘rallentando’ (speed), in conjunction with paralinguistic ‘creak’ are variously interpreted as: (a) ‘Mumbling’; (b) ‘Dreaminess’; (c) ‘Searching for words’; and (d) ‘Drunkenness’. On the other hand, in Utterance 2, we have a change of speed from ‘rallentando’ to ‘allegro’, an increase in loudness from ‘diminuendo’ to ‘crescendo’, and the gradual loss of paralinguistic ‘creak’. The paralinguistic feature ‘laugh’ is also realized. In other words there is a perceived change in the speaker’s attitude which is marked intonationally. The falling tones of the first utterance are replaced by a much more varied patterning of complex and compound tones as shown in the following table. Utterance
\
/
-
A
1.
7
1
I
2.
4
2
1
v
v\
N 1
5
\+/
/+\
1 1
‘Eavesdroppers’ perceived this change in attitude as follows: (a) ‘There’s amusement’; (b) ‘It’s amusing’; (c) ‘He livens up’; (d) ‘More animated’; (e) ‘It’s a funny story . . . informal in humour’; (f) ‘Drunkenness’; (g) ‘More casual’. It is clear on the basis of these two examples alone that explanations of non-segmental features, in utterances, is problematic. The contrastive functions of intonational systems, it seems, cannot be determined by assuming a one-to-one semantic equivalence between the formal contrasts of any utterance and a particular label. We need to explore in much more detail what kinds of perceptions ‘eavesdropper’ interpretations of complex clusters of prosodic features are based on; for as Hultzen (1959, p. 107) recognizes, ‘It is the method of getting at interpretations rather than the interpretations themselves which is in question’. Although Gumpertz and Herasimchuk (1975, p. 94) argue that ‘. . . the prosodic component encompassing stress, pitch, and timing along with speech features usually termed paralinguistic is as important in interpreting the meaning of interactional exchanges as referential meaning or propositional content’, we must beware of ascribing general interpretations to non-segmental features of discourse, based on the relative frequency of occurrence of any single feature, or set of features. Given the mutual and continuous creation of ‘meaning’ in discourse, it would be quite wrong to assume that what any speaker ‘means’ is specifiable in terms of the function of particular prosodic or para-
128
GRAHAMMcGREGOR
linguistic systems. We are not likely to enhance our understanding of the functions of intonation in discourse by the use of notional and often vague labels. What we need to examine is the organization of prosody within the structure of talk itself. The analysis which follows is based on ‘eavesdropper’ commentaries which were provided in respect of the following extract, taken from Crystal and Davy (1975, pp. 22-23).’ C
II went to ‘Stamford ?BR'DOE last year ~NCEI B Iall tfifty ‘thousand have got to get tbuT through T&RE~ C. I’d lnever ~B&ENBEF~RE~. I&RI - IcbRlthe ICR?IWDS~.1130~1 and.you IW~NDERED~ if ;ob weie going tb be (trampleh to D&TH[ they Istarted to SI-I~VE~ .do you IKN~W( it’s [quite trRfoH’rENINo~(A: lwhere was ?TH~ST~NYI B: (Y&HI) [carrying ‘Justin-IStamford BRIDGETwhere I [went to see CHBLSEAI [play ~BEDS~ (A: loh yiislI&l)- and ILeeds ‘played SHBCKINGLYI- jworst’gametheytever PLAYEDI well Isome of the ‘gates ‘might be a’bout as WIDE as tthat taboMlasthe IR~OM~ IM~GHTN'Tthey1 IR~ALLY~ @OHI there were IK~DS[
/sitting on ‘that tgreat H~ARDING~ albout as ‘wide as THXTI -and albout tihirty tT&usmD have to ‘go out through k-&al (C: @RI) you 1~~6~1 I meaner (A: l&l) - oh it’s IT~RRIBLE~ @OHI the lsea of - tbodies in tfront of you %&NG( and Ipeople ‘started to P&HI BE@ND youI it got [quite FRIGHTENINGIcos you [couldn’t have ‘done ‘anything you’d have been Iabsolutely tHikPLEss(
In this extract Crystal and Davy note the importance for ‘interpretation’ of the following prosodic and paralinguistic cues in respect of two utterances (both realized by the same speaker). Utterance 1. [Leeds’played SH?XKINGLY~ - Iworst'gametheytever~~X~~~l
C & D commentary:
‘Note the husky tone of voice indicative of disparagement.’
Utterance 2. Ibo~( the lsea of -
tbodies in tfront of you tMbvINcl and /people ‘started to P~SH( BE~H~ND you1 it got /quite FR~GHTENING~cos youi couldn’t have ‘done ‘anything you’d have been [absolutely tH%LPLEssl
C & D commentary: ‘Note the extra prosodic features as C gets more involved in his story, marked glissando movement, and increasing speed towards the end.’ The following responses in respect of these two utterances, or parts of them, were recorded in the course of ‘eavesdropper’ commentaries: Pair 1. ‘Shockingly really stood out. ’ ‘Yeah it sounded really affected.’ ‘It was the way he said it shockingly. ’ In both realizations of the item ‘shockingly’ the ‘eavesdropper’ attempted an imitation of the original realization. A fuller prosodic and paralinguistic analysis of the original utterance reveals that ‘shockingly’: (a) carries a wide falling nuclear tone; (b) receives a high booster at onset; (c) is drawled on the first syllable; and has the paralinguistic feature ‘husky’ (which Crystal mentions). A comparison of the imitation with the model utterance is interesting in terms of the features by which the ‘eavesdropper’ realizes it. The nature of the gloss, and the fact of the imitation, suggests that the co-occurrence of prosodic and
INTONATION
AND MEANING
129
IN CONVERSATIO’N
paralinguistic features which the speaker makes use of in his text is ‘intentional’; both in respect of signalling his ‘intentions’ and his determination to gain his audience’s attention. Pair 1 made no reference to the second utterance. Pair 2 did make reference to the second utterance but not the first. They remarked that, ‘All those people and It got quite frightening didn’t sound natural at all’. Perhaps this remark is responding to what C & D note as ‘C getting more involved in his story’, though to what extent we could claim that the extra prosodic markers are integral to the interpretation ‘non-natural’ sounding is problematic. Pair 3. Both ‘eavesdroppers’ from this pairing provided detailed commentaries. Indeed their comments indicate some precision in describing both how the utterances being considered are realized, and also what the ‘intentions’ of the speaker were (at least for them). ‘A guy who was trying to make a point kept saying it was really quite frightening. It was like talking to somebody who wasn’t really listening . . . he kept repeating things.’ ‘They’re talking about Chelsea and Leeds. He didn’t sound so pleased about it. He said Leeds played shockingly like he had an interest in it. ’ ‘He was quite vehement about it when he said Leedsplayedshockingly.
’
‘At one point it seems that they’re not talking about the same thing. One guy is talking about the gates and the other is talking about the sea of bodies.’ ‘The second guy is quite sympathetic and doesn’t seem to know what it’s like. The other guy has kind of experienced it all.’ There seems to be a reasonable match here between the Crystal and Davy glosses and the ‘eavesdropper’ commentaries. Whilst C & D note ‘disparagement’ in C’s tone of voice, the ‘eavesdroppers’ noted his ‘displeasure’ and emotional involvement with the topic of conversation. ‘Vehement’ goes rather beyond the notion of ‘disparagement’, but reflects the ‘eavesdroppers” concern to describe accurately a feature of the utterance which they feel is invested with a particular emotional stance. C’s ‘sense of involvement’ is clearly established for this pair of informants as their comments indicate-‘The speaker talks as if he’s kind of experienced it all’. Pair 4. Whilst both informants were concerned with the realization ‘shockingly’, their expressed interest differed somewhat from the other pairings (but cf. Pair 1, ‘It sounded affected’ and the comments of Pair 5, below). ‘He was definitely posh when he said shockingly’. However, the second member of the pair contradicts this opinion. ‘I wouldn’t have said that. I thought he was a northener.’ The first informant did not respond to this contradiction. However, despite the two opposing points of view both informants were in general agreement that there was something ‘odd’ about the way in which ‘shockingly’ was realized. Their response to utterance 2, containing the segment ‘It got quite frightening’ was much the same as given by Pair 2. Pair 4 were similarly unhappy about the ‘unnatural’ tone of the segment. ‘Quite frightening actually sounded quite artificial, as if he was reading it rather than speaking’. Like Pair 3 they also found the speaker’s linguistic behaviour repetitive. ‘He repeats quitefrightening just to fill in a gap in the conversation.’
130
GRAHAM MCGREGOR
Pair 5. Imitations of ‘shockingly’ were realized by both informants in discussing the extract. ‘I loved his expression of the word shockingly (imitated). It sort of represented upper Bourgeosie middle class’ (cf. Pairs 1 and 4). ‘Yes it’s inflected, shockingly’(imitated). ‘Mm he certainly emphasizes the word doesn’t he?’ The ‘naturalness’ criterion appears here again, though the comment does not make the notion explicit. Reference is made by the pairing to the second utterance under consideration and concerns the emotional content of ‘It got quite frightening ‘. ‘He was talking about a situation which he considered was frightening and yet there didn’t seem to be any real emotion’. Clearly this statement contradicts Crystal and Davy’s gloss of ‘greater involvement’. The set of cues marking this involvement are certainly not, it seems, only to be interpreted according to Crystal and Davy’s point of view. Compare also the interpretation given to the second utterance by Pairs 2 and 4. ‘It didn’t sound natural.’ ‘It sounded artificial.’ Crystal’s gloss, here, is clearly based on something more than the interpretation of the ‘extra prosodic features’. He was in fact a participant in the exchange in question and indicates his knowledge of the speaker and situation in his assumption that the prosodic features present mark ‘involvement’. The ‘eavesdroppers’ who listened to the extract had no such knowledge and it is interesting to note that their comments must be based on linguistic cues alone. The question of misunderstanding or misinterpretation clearly arises here. On what basis can we claim to have any sense of what any speaker may or may not ‘intend’? Would my informants have come to different decisions had they personal knowledge of the speakers involved? Would visual clues have helped? Whatever answers might be provided for each of these questions, the fact remains that different interpretations of the extract were made by native hearers of English. Can we therefore be so sure that our glossing behaviour as analysts will provide ‘interpretations’ of talk which all hearers will lay claim to? A closer understanding of this question is of considerable importance for understanding the nature of intonation and its function in dialogic interaction. Analysts of intonation have all too readily assumed the functional equivalences of prosodic and paralinguistic systems without stopping to question whether such equivalences are valid for all speaker-hearers, in all conversational contexts. By examining the distributions of formal contrasts in different extracts of talk, it proves possible to identify the ways in which utterances are preceived differently. (Further details of ‘eavesdropper’ responses in respect of other extracts in McGregor (forthcoming), wherein is also presented a model of the ways in which naive hearers recover the structure of informal linguistic exchanges.) We would agree from our present findings with Goffman (1976, p. 261), who notes, ‘If speakers and hearers were to file a report on what they assumed to be the full meaning of an extended utterance, these glosses would differ, at least in detail. Indeed, one routinely presumes on a mutual understanding that doesn’t quite exist.’ In presenting their perceptions of the process whereby discourse is created as conversation, ‘eavesdroppers’ demonstrated. a skill which has hitherto been ignored by analysts of talk. If we are to come to any further understanding of the structure of conversation and the dialogic principles upon which it is based, then it is to the skill of the hearer we must turn. Only he can tell us what he has ‘understood’.
INTONATION
AND MEANING
IN CONVERSATION
131
NOTES t This approach is made explicit by Halliday, who promotes the view that a nuclear tone expounds a single ‘basic’ meaning. He notes, for example, in Kress (1976, p. 22). ‘Basically, a falling contour means certainty and a rising contour means uncertainty’. . . is to develop an 2 Cf. Crystal (1975, p. 33), who points out, ‘The problem for the intonational analyst adequate model of the contrastive possibilities operating as one moves from nuclear tone to nuclear tone in the stream of contrastive speech.’ 3 The extracts were taken from Crystal and Davy (1975), i.e. from conversations recorded ‘. . . in a normal domestic environment . . . (where the speakers) were not aware that they had been recorded’ (1975, p. 12). 4 Crystal and Davy provide their own commentaries on the extracts as aids to ‘interpretation’. Although their book is intended for non-native speakers of English, 1 found that their comments were not radically different in kind from those offered by my ‘eavesdropper’ informants. In practical terms, Crystal and Davy’s intuitive glossing of their own data afforded me with a means of comparison, which I welcomed.
REFERENCES BOLINGER, D. 1958 Stress and information. American Speech 33,520. BRAZIL, D. 1975 DiscourseIntonation
I. English Language Research, Birmingham University.
BRAZIL, D. 1978 Discourse Intonation II. English Language Research, Birmingham University. CRYSTAL, D. 1969 Prosodic Systems and Intonation in English. University Press, Cambridge. CRYSTAL, D. 1975 The English Tone of Voice. Edward Arnold, London. CRYSTAL, D. and DAVY, D. 1975 Advanced Conversational Engksh. Longman, London. GOFFMAN, E. 1976 Replies and responses. Languageand Society 5, No. 3, pp. 257-313. GUMPERZ, J. J. and HERASIMCHUK, E. 1975 The conversational analysis of social meaning. In M. Sanches and B. G. Blount (Eds.), Sociocultural Dimensions of Language Use, pp. 81-115. Academic Press, New York. HALLIDAY, M. A. K. 1967 Intonation and Grammar in British Engltkh. Mouton, The Hague. HOENIGSWALD, H. M. 1966 A proposal for the study of folk-linguistics. In W. Bright (Ed.), Socioiinguistics, pp. 16-26. Mouton, The Hague. HULTZEN, L. S. 1959 Information points in intonation. Phonetica 4, 107-120. KRESS, G. (Ed.) 1976 Halliday: System and Function in Language. Oxford University Press, London. MCGREGOR, G. (forthcoming) Studies Towards the Theoretical Importance of Conversational Structure. O’CONNOR, J. D. and ARNOLD, G. F. 1961 Intonation of ColloquialEnglish. Longmans, London. PELLOWE, J. and JONES, V. 1978 On intonational variabiality in Tyneside speech. In P. Trudgill (Ed.), Sociolinguistic Patterns in British English, Edward Arnold, London. PELLOWE, J. and JONES, V. 1979 Establishing linguistic space. Language and Speech 22,97-l 16.
intonationally
variable systems in a multidimensional
Communication
Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 123-131, 1982.
0271-5309/82/024l12349$03.00/0
Printed in Great Britain.
INTONATION
Pergamon Press Ltd.
AND MEANING
IN CONVERSATION
GRAHAM MCGREGOR Within the traditions of intonational studies in both Britain and America, two extreme positions appear to have been taken up, as Brazil (1975, p. 2) neatly summarizes. “On the one hand, one may cite Bolinger’s (1958) dictum that encounters between grammar and intonation are ‘casual not causal’. On the other, Halliday (1967) argues that all meaning differences in language are referable to either lexis or grammar and, since English intonation is never lexical, the contrasts it realizes are to be taken into a grammar suitably elaborated to receive them.” I do not wish to argue about the appropriacy of the distinction ‘grammatical’ versus ‘attitudinal’, but tend to agree with Brazil that, ‘The formal features that are exploited in the service of these two functions are so closely related and so readily interchangeable, that it becomes difficult to believe in the validity of the distinction’ (1975, p. 2). For the moment let us focus on analytic approaches which attempt to specify the ‘attitudinal’ uses of intonation. Descriptions which attribute ‘meaning’ to a particular intonational feature, or set of features, are rooted in the traditions of text books used in second-language learning. Publications such as O’Connor and Arnold (l%l), for example, hope to provide the learner with useful generalizations concerning pitch variety and possible ‘attitudinal’ realizations.’ The difficulty of providing functional equivalents for nuclear tone types is paramount. Two major stumbling blocks in the study of the functions of intonational systems, suggest themselves: (1) the problem of contextual variation, and (2) the problem of ascribing generalized interpretative glosses to utterances. Crystal (1969, p. 294) notes, ‘What I consider to be the most important difficulty in the matter of the semantic analysis of intonation (is) . . . the problem of which descriptive labels to use to refer to the attitudinal effects being signalled by the prosodic and paralinguistic complexes’. In the absence of explicit criteria and an agreed semantic theory, the description of intonational meaning poses considerable theoretical and methodological problems for the analyst. I would suggest that attempts to explicate how our semantic interpretations are organized, whether on grammatical or attitudinal grounds, simply fail to take into account the contextual dynamic of interactive discourse. The selection of ‘appropriate’ labels as markers of ‘syntactic continuity’, or as reflections of speaker ‘doubt’ or ‘uncertainty’, are not helpful when we consider the possible range of meaning that any speaker can ‘intend’, or indeed that any hearer may ‘interpret’. Even if one insists upon a dual account of meaning, dependent on the interrelationship of grammatical and attitudinal roles (see, for example, Crystal 1975, 37ff.) the problem of labelling remains. It remains because analysts have insisted that there is for any utterance “a stable ‘core’ of meaning”. However, no matter the number of labels one chooses, or the degree of generalization one’s description encapsulates, the problems of discriminating between such fine distinctions as, ‘polite/respectful’; ‘doubt/hesitation’; ‘impressed/satisfied’, remain. 123
GRAHAM MCGREGOR
124
Can we as analysts guarantee that our interpretative glosses of prosodic features x to y, are functionally equivalent to some ‘meaning’ z, where z may not have been ‘intended’ by some speaker in some particular discourse? The nub of the problem lies in the importance analysts have ascribed to speakers as signallers of ‘meaning’. Brazil (1975) exemplifies my concern. He writes, ‘Centrally, the reference is to the speaker’s moment-by-moment assessment of the state of convergence at the time and place of speaking. By choosing one intonation pattern rather than another, he affects what any utterance does . . .’ (1975, p. 3). It may very well be the case that a speaker can ‘affect what any utterance does’ semantically, but the effect of that utterance is not recoverable simply from what that speaker says. In discourse a speaker is dependent on two things. Firstly, he is dependent on the recognition that an affect has been signalled, and secondly, he is dependent on the fact that the signal itself has been accorded some kind of interpretation. Both these notions are centrally bound to the process of ‘hearing’ and to the particular listening behaviour that is employed by speaker-hearers, in the moment-by-moment assessment of the form and function of turns of talk. Analysts such as Brazil, who claim that the ‘meaning’ of any utterance can be determined by examining the intonational options of any speaker-hearer, are guilty of basing their analyses more on the fiction than on the facts of discourse structure. The distinction between “. . . what an item ‘means’ as a lexico-grammatical construct and what it ‘does’ as a contribution in discourse” (Brazil 1975, p. 3) is both naive and unhelpful. If it were merely the case, as Brazil claims, that, “Once the functionally contrastive features have been identified and related to each other in a way which properly recognizes the various dimensions of function involved-once that is, we have established just what is in contrast with what-it is possible to provide a consistent characterization of the ‘meaning’ of each feature” (1975, p. 3), then the role of the hearer would simply be denied. We should then be left with the view that intonation is merely the realization of deep syntactic features, subject to all the implications of a rule-based transformational generative grammar. If we accept that a speaker, when in focused interaction with a hearer, uses prosodic systems to ‘transmit his affective states and attitudes . . . (specifies) the role to be attributed to syntactic structures; and . . . (indicates) the relative informational parts of his utterance’ (Pellowe and Jones 1978, p. lOl), then the question remains as to how we might model the mutually and uniquely determined ‘meanings’ exchanged by participants in dialogically structured discourses.* The establishment of mutually recognized bases upon which information is exchanged in conversational contexts is clearly a remarkably skilled form of social behaviour, depending on certain forms of knowledge and linguistic patterning (see McGregor, forthcoming). Conversation is a joint production and any product of the discourse per se is a product of the effort of speaker-hearers interpreting the ‘meaning’ of the other’s talk, in order to decide what to say next. The difficulties of determining the reciprocal ‘intentions’ of speaker-hearers in focused interaction are intrinsic to even the most banal kinds of talk. However, there is a way forward. Working on the premise that the informational content of speaker-hearer exchanges (the non-surface ‘intentions’ of participants in talk) is accessible to, and recoverable by, other native speakers, it ought to be possible to explore the active and effective means of achieving interpersonal communication in any given speech community. Folk-linguistic descriptions which reflect a hearer’s perceptions and knowledge of his language are a valid and important source of data (Hoenigswald 1966). To what extent
the analyst
can make
precise
use of the folk-linguistic
expertise
INTONATION
AND MEANING
IN CONVERSATION
125
of ‘naive’ hearers is a matter for some speculation. However, it is reasonable to assume that if a linguistic phenomenon is spoken about by native speakers, it is worth investigating. How might we proceed, then, to investigate the process of speech underst~ding, as it occurs in spontaneous exchanges of talk between individuals? The use of ‘eavesdropper’ informants has enabled me to examine the ways in which ‘naive’ hearers have responded to, and commented on, various taped extracts of talk. A major question to arise from this work was the problem of ascertaining the difference between how one perceives as an actual listener in a conversational situation, and how one perceives and attends to what one hears as an ‘eavesdropper’. This question cannot be explored in detail here (see McGregor, forthcoming). For the purpose of the present paper, I wish to restrict my discussion to the particular role, and reported recoverability, of prosodic and paralinguistic systems as perceived markers of the signalled ‘intentions’ of speaker-hearers involved in different conversational contexts. Six extracts of talk were played on different occasions to eight pairs of informants3 The informants were asked to listen to, and provide a commentary on, each of the extracts in turn. If the informants required further information on the nature of this verbal instruction, I pointed out the need not to bias what they ought to, or might, listen for. The only further information which I allowed was that any comments which they made would be welcome. It was not uncommon for informants to discuss the nature of the task between themselves. Indeed, they were encouraged to provide. their own set of assumptions and/or interpretations of what the task involved for them. Prior to the arrival of each pair in the room where the extracts were played, a second tape recorder was switched on, enabling me to recover any comments that were made. Informants were not notified that they had been recorded until they had finished discussing all six extracts. On replaying the commentaries, I was struck by the number of occasions my ‘eavesdropper’ informants made inferences relating to what was commonly described as ‘tone of voice’. Compare the following, for example: ‘Speaker A was not relaxed. He was very cagey, it’s in his tone of voice.’ ‘The first speaker sounded eager but hesitant. It came from the way he was saying things maybe his tone.’ ‘The tone of voice is important. There’s a sense of sorting things out. The tone reflects that nobody is posturing, trying to score over anybody else. Yet it’s all vaguely ironic.’ The kinds of information conveyed to ‘eavesdroppers’ by ‘tone of voice’ raised the question of how these interpretations or inferences were derived. Was there a relationship between the formal prosodic and paralinguistic contrasts realized by the participants in each extract and ‘eavesdroppers’ reported folk-linguistic perceptions of the use of different tones of voice? In order to examine the possibility that some tone of voice was effectively signalling either an affective state or attitude, or both, as well as indicating the relative informational importance of different parts of a speaker’s utterance, I set out to compare the formal prosodic contrasts realized in the extracts, with the commentaries I had taped. If we examine just two utterances which were commented on (the utterances are taken from a different data source), then we can begin to gain some insight into the sorts of listening behaviour ‘eavesdropper’ commentaries exemplified. A prosodic and paralinguistic
126
GRAHAM MCGREGOR
analysis of the featuress realized for each utterance relating to both utterances are also given. Utterance
is presented
below. Comments
1.
P? “‘ I&&l
I ‘mean ‘I’m’ I “/reckon
I’m FAIRLY
sick of
” ‘dimin slurred rhythmic”’
‘Slurred’ “rhythmic low” \N
! if I HAD this
“IGbRMANf
I&‘:
-1;ou
S&E’/ 11; hours a [V&K]
N& [ADM\&
‘precise’ “‘spiky high precise”’
“rail low” ,I, ! N b THING
being broke”‘-but,
-
‘I jmean (its) a DR BN AM (I can’t) lwhose
REALIZATION
. .
(I can’t).
‘creak’
Informants’comments. (1) ‘He drops his voice. He’s mumbling. It seems quieter.’ (2) ‘His voice sounds dreamy as if he’s living it. The voice falls after each thing with a little pause in between.’ (3) ‘He sounded very tired, much lower than usual.’ (4) ‘He leaves out words. He’s thinking about what he’s saying, searching for words. The voice gets quieter. ’ (5) ‘There’s a lot of false starts and errors. He’s usually quite precise. Sounded a bit pissed to me. ’ (6) ‘There’s no need for him to complete things. There is a sense in which he feels it isn’t quite happening for him. It’s unreal.’ Utterance
2. ‘IDAAR otd EMMg/“y
know the P&?TMAN
Istuffed
“low rhythmic”
‘laugh’
the ST%F
through
‘monot’
-
on ‘her [M%gSTYS](
“‘tense husky crest”’ ..>,
L“‘
‘high’
.>>3 -
‘creak’ -i&‘RAT-
‘S@R~;
the
she couldn’t
UNDERST&?D
my
I REACTION
at IAALp
she said
(
““lax nas alleg gliss”” -1
but its :“not
‘nas’
the Q&EN
who/takes
your !tax A6Aq:is
[fs
‘alleg’
Informants’comments. (1) ‘There’s amusement. It starts off quietly. He captures her intonation by imitating her. I doubt if the imitation is accurate. It’s his own interpretation of it. He was trying to capture the feeling that O.H.M.S. was something spedal for her.’ (2) ‘He laughs on O.H.M.S. There’s unspoken agreement that this is naive and amusing.’
INTONATION
AND MEANING
127
IN CONVERSATION
(3) ‘The interaction livens up with Emma’s story. His voice rises as he starts to laugh (informant imitates, ‘It’s not the Queen’).’ (4) ‘When he talks about Emma he’s much more animated.’ (5) “The story relates that something funny has happened. ‘Stuffed the stuff through’ is said in a sort of staccato, as if he had something stuck in his throat. His attitude here is different from the rest. The humour is totally informal. It breaks the ice-we are good mates let’s have a laugh.” (6) “ ‘Dear old Emma’ sounds awful kind of drunk.” (7) ‘The conversation is split in two halves. The subject fizzles out at the anecdote about the tax claim. It becomes much more casual.’ If we compare ‘eavesdropper’ commentaries with actual prosodic realizations, it is clear that there is a very marked contrast in perceptions of the speaker’s attitude from one part of the exchange to the other. In Utterance 1, the co-occurrence of the features ‘low’ (pitch range), ‘diminuendo’ (loudness), ‘rallentando’ (speed), in conjunction with paralinguistic ‘creak’ are variously interpreted as: (a) ‘Mumbling’; (b) ‘Dreaminess’; (c) ‘Searching for words’; and (d) ‘Drunkenness’. On the other hand, in Utterance 2, we have a change of speed from ‘rallentando’ to ‘allegro’, an increase in loudness from ‘diminuendo’ to ‘crescendo’, and the gradual loss of paralinguistic ‘creak’. The paralinguistic feature ‘laugh’ is also realized. In other words there is a perceived change in the speaker’s attitude which is marked intonationally. The falling tones of the first utterance are replaced by a much more varied patterning of complex and compound tones as shown in the following table. Utterance
\
/
-
A
1.
7
1
I
2.
4
2
1
v
v\
N 1
5
\+/
/+\
1 1
‘Eavesdroppers’ perceived this change in attitude as follows: (a) ‘There’s amusement’; (b) ‘It’s amusing’; (c) ‘He livens up’; (d) ‘More animated’; (e) ‘It’s a funny story . . . informal in humour’; (f) ‘Drunkenness’; (g) ‘More casual’. It is clear on the basis of these two examples alone that explanations of non-segmental features, in utterances, is problematic. The contrastive functions of intonational systems, it seems, cannot be determined by assuming a one-to-one semantic equivalence between the formal contrasts of any utterance and a particular label. We need to explore in much more detail what kinds of perceptions ‘eavesdropper’ interpretations of complex clusters of prosodic features are based on; for as Hultzen (1959, p. 107) recognizes, ‘It is the method of getting at interpretations rather than the interpretations themselves which is in question’. Although Gumpertz and Herasimchuk (1975, p. 94) argue that ‘. . . the prosodic component encompassing stress, pitch, and timing along with speech features usually termed paralinguistic is as important in interpreting the meaning of interactional exchanges as referential meaning or propositional content’, we must beware of ascribing general interpretations to non-segmental features of discourse, based on the relative frequency of occurrence of any single feature, or set of features. Given the mutual and continuous creation of ‘meaning’ in discourse, it would be quite wrong to assume that what any speaker ‘means’ is specifiable in terms of the function of particular prosodic or para-
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GRAHAMMcGREGOR
linguistic systems. We are not likely to enhance our understanding of the functions of intonation in discourse by the use of notional and often vague labels. What we need to examine is the organization of prosody within the structure of talk itself. The analysis which follows is based on ‘eavesdropper’ commentaries which were provided in respect of the following extract, taken from Crystal and Davy (1975, pp. 22-23).’ C
II went to ‘Stamford ?BR'DOE last year ~NCEI B Iall tfifty ‘thousand have got to get tbuT through T&RE~ C. I’d lnever ~B&ENBEF~RE~. I&RI - IcbRlthe ICR?IWDS~.1130~1 and.you IW~NDERED~ if ;ob weie going tb be (trampleh to D&TH[ they Istarted to SI-I~VE~ .do you IKN~W( it’s [quite trRfoH’rENINo~(A: lwhere was ?TH~ST~NYI B: (Y&HI) [carrying ‘Justin-IStamford BRIDGETwhere I [went to see CHBLSEAI [play ~BEDS~ (A: loh yiislI&l)- and ILeeds ‘played SHBCKINGLYI- jworst’gametheytever PLAYEDI well Isome of the ‘gates ‘might be a’bout as WIDE as tthat taboMlasthe IR~OM~ IM~GHTN'Tthey1 IR~ALLY~ @OHI there were IK~DS[
/sitting on ‘that tgreat H~ARDING~ albout as ‘wide as THXTI -and albout tihirty tT&usmD have to ‘go out through k-&al (C: @RI) you 1~~6~1 I meaner (A: l&l) - oh it’s IT~RRIBLE~ @OHI the lsea of - tbodies in tfront of you %&NG( and Ipeople ‘started to P&HI BE@ND youI it got [quite FRIGHTENINGIcos you [couldn’t have ‘done ‘anything you’d have been Iabsolutely tHikPLEss(
In this extract Crystal and Davy note the importance for ‘interpretation’ of the following prosodic and paralinguistic cues in respect of two utterances (both realized by the same speaker). Utterance 1. [Leeds’played SH?XKINGLY~ - Iworst'gametheytever~~X~~~l
C & D commentary:
‘Note the husky tone of voice indicative of disparagement.’
Utterance 2. Ibo~( the lsea of -
tbodies in tfront of you tMbvINcl and /people ‘started to P~SH( BE~H~ND you1 it got /quite FR~GHTENING~cos youi couldn’t have ‘done ‘anything you’d have been [absolutely tH%LPLEssl
C & D commentary: ‘Note the extra prosodic features as C gets more involved in his story, marked glissando movement, and increasing speed towards the end.’ The following responses in respect of these two utterances, or parts of them, were recorded in the course of ‘eavesdropper’ commentaries: Pair 1. ‘Shockingly really stood out. ’ ‘Yeah it sounded really affected.’ ‘It was the way he said it shockingly. ’ In both realizations of the item ‘shockingly’ the ‘eavesdropper’ attempted an imitation of the original realization. A fuller prosodic and paralinguistic analysis of the original utterance reveals that ‘shockingly’: (a) carries a wide falling nuclear tone; (b) receives a high booster at onset; (c) is drawled on the first syllable; and has the paralinguistic feature ‘husky’ (which Crystal mentions). A comparison of the imitation with the model utterance is interesting in terms of the features by which the ‘eavesdropper’ realizes it. The nature of the gloss, and the fact of the imitation, suggests that the co-occurrence of prosodic and
INTONATION
AND MEANING
129
IN CONVERSATIO’N
paralinguistic features which the speaker makes use of in his text is ‘intentional’; both in respect of signalling his ‘intentions’ and his determination to gain his audience’s attention. Pair 1 made no reference to the second utterance. Pair 2 did make reference to the second utterance but not the first. They remarked that, ‘All those people and It got quite frightening didn’t sound natural at all’. Perhaps this remark is responding to what C & D note as ‘C getting more involved in his story’, though to what extent we could claim that the extra prosodic markers are integral to the interpretation ‘non-natural’ sounding is problematic. Pair 3. Both ‘eavesdroppers’ from this pairing provided detailed commentaries. Indeed their comments indicate some precision in describing both how the utterances being considered are realized, and also what the ‘intentions’ of the speaker were (at least for them). ‘A guy who was trying to make a point kept saying it was really quite frightening. It was like talking to somebody who wasn’t really listening . . . he kept repeating things.’ ‘They’re talking about Chelsea and Leeds. He didn’t sound so pleased about it. He said Leeds played shockingly like he had an interest in it. ’ ‘He was quite vehement about it when he said Leedsplayedshockingly.
’
‘At one point it seems that they’re not talking about the same thing. One guy is talking about the gates and the other is talking about the sea of bodies.’ ‘The second guy is quite sympathetic and doesn’t seem to know what it’s like. The other guy has kind of experienced it all.’ There seems to be a reasonable match here between the Crystal and Davy glosses and the ‘eavesdropper’ commentaries. Whilst C & D note ‘disparagement’ in C’s tone of voice, the ‘eavesdroppers’ noted his ‘displeasure’ and emotional involvement with the topic of conversation. ‘Vehement’ goes rather beyond the notion of ‘disparagement’, but reflects the ‘eavesdroppers” concern to describe accurately a feature of the utterance which they feel is invested with a particular emotional stance. C’s ‘sense of involvement’ is clearly established for this pair of informants as their comments indicate-‘The speaker talks as if he’s kind of experienced it all’. Pair 4. Whilst both informants were concerned with the realization ‘shockingly’, their expressed interest differed somewhat from the other pairings (but cf. Pair 1, ‘It sounded affected’ and the comments of Pair 5, below). ‘He was definitely posh when he said shockingly’. However, the second member of the pair contradicts this opinion. ‘I wouldn’t have said that. I thought he was a northener.’ The first informant did not respond to this contradiction. However, despite the two opposing points of view both informants were in general agreement that there was something ‘odd’ about the way in which ‘shockingly’ was realized. Their response to utterance 2, containing the segment ‘It got quite frightening’ was much the same as given by Pair 2. Pair 4 were similarly unhappy about the ‘unnatural’ tone of the segment. ‘Quite frightening actually sounded quite artificial, as if he was reading it rather than speaking’. Like Pair 3 they also found the speaker’s linguistic behaviour repetitive. ‘He repeats quitefrightening just to fill in a gap in the conversation.’
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GRAHAM MCGREGOR
Pair 5. Imitations of ‘shockingly’ were realized by both informants in discussing the extract. ‘I loved his expression of the word shockingly (imitated). It sort of represented upper Bourgeosie middle class’ (cf. Pairs 1 and 4). ‘Yes it’s inflected, shockingly’(imitated). ‘Mm he certainly emphasizes the word doesn’t he?’ The ‘naturalness’ criterion appears here again, though the comment does not make the notion explicit. Reference is made by the pairing to the second utterance under consideration and concerns the emotional content of ‘It got quite frightening ‘. ‘He was talking about a situation which he considered was frightening and yet there didn’t seem to be any real emotion’. Clearly this statement contradicts Crystal and Davy’s gloss of ‘greater involvement’. The set of cues marking this involvement are certainly not, it seems, only to be interpreted according to Crystal and Davy’s point of view. Compare also the interpretation given to the second utterance by Pairs 2 and 4. ‘It didn’t sound natural.’ ‘It sounded artificial.’ Crystal’s gloss, here, is clearly based on something more than the interpretation of the ‘extra prosodic features’. He was in fact a participant in the exchange in question and indicates his knowledge of the speaker and situation in his assumption that the prosodic features present mark ‘involvement’. The ‘eavesdroppers’ who listened to the extract had no such knowledge and it is interesting to note that their comments must be based on linguistic cues alone. The question of misunderstanding or misinterpretation clearly arises here. On what basis can we claim to have any sense of what any speaker may or may not ‘intend’? Would my informants have come to different decisions had they personal knowledge of the speakers involved? Would visual clues have helped? Whatever answers might be provided for each of these questions, the fact remains that different interpretations of the extract were made by native hearers of English. Can we therefore be so sure that our glossing behaviour as analysts will provide ‘interpretations’ of talk which all hearers will lay claim to? A closer understanding of this question is of considerable importance for understanding the nature of intonation and its function in dialogic interaction. Analysts of intonation have all too readily assumed the functional equivalences of prosodic and paralinguistic systems without stopping to question whether such equivalences are valid for all speaker-hearers, in all conversational contexts. By examining the distributions of formal contrasts in different extracts of talk, it proves possible to identify the ways in which utterances are preceived differently. (Further details of ‘eavesdropper’ responses in respect of other extracts in McGregor (forthcoming), wherein is also presented a model of the ways in which naive hearers recover the structure of informal linguistic exchanges.) We would agree from our present findings with Goffman (1976, p. 261), who notes, ‘If speakers and hearers were to file a report on what they assumed to be the full meaning of an extended utterance, these glosses would differ, at least in detail. Indeed, one routinely presumes on a mutual understanding that doesn’t quite exist.’ In presenting their perceptions of the process whereby discourse is created as conversation, ‘eavesdroppers’ demonstrated. a skill which has hitherto been ignored by analysts of talk. If we are to come to any further understanding of the structure of conversation and the dialogic principles upon which it is based, then it is to the skill of the hearer we must turn. Only he can tell us what he has ‘understood’.
INTONATION
AND MEANING
IN CONVERSATION
131
NOTES t This approach is made explicit by Halliday, who promotes the view that a nuclear tone expounds a single ‘basic’ meaning. He notes, for example, in Kress (1976, p. 22). ‘Basically, a falling contour means certainty and a rising contour means uncertainty’. . . is to develop an 2 Cf. Crystal (1975, p. 33), who points out, ‘The problem for the intonational analyst adequate model of the contrastive possibilities operating as one moves from nuclear tone to nuclear tone in the stream of contrastive speech.’ 3 The extracts were taken from Crystal and Davy (1975), i.e. from conversations recorded ‘. . . in a normal domestic environment . . . (where the speakers) were not aware that they had been recorded’ (1975, p. 12). 4 Crystal and Davy provide their own commentaries on the extracts as aids to ‘interpretation’. Although their book is intended for non-native speakers of English, 1 found that their comments were not radically different in kind from those offered by my ‘eavesdropper’ informants. In practical terms, Crystal and Davy’s intuitive glossing of their own data afforded me with a means of comparison, which I welcomed.
REFERENCES BOLINGER, D. 1958 Stress and information. American Speech 33,520. BRAZIL, D. 1975 DiscourseIntonation
I. English Language Research, Birmingham University.
BRAZIL, D. 1978 Discourse Intonation II. English Language Research, Birmingham University. CRYSTAL, D. 1969 Prosodic Systems and Intonation in English. University Press, Cambridge. CRYSTAL, D. 1975 The English Tone of Voice. Edward Arnold, London. CRYSTAL, D. and DAVY, D. 1975 Advanced Conversational Engksh. Longman, London. GOFFMAN, E. 1976 Replies and responses. Languageand Society 5, No. 3, pp. 257-313. GUMPERZ, J. J. and HERASIMCHUK, E. 1975 The conversational analysis of social meaning. In M. Sanches and B. G. Blount (Eds.), Sociocultural Dimensions of Language Use, pp. 81-115. Academic Press, New York. HALLIDAY, M. A. K. 1967 Intonation and Grammar in British Engltkh. Mouton, The Hague. HOENIGSWALD, H. M. 1966 A proposal for the study of folk-linguistics. In W. Bright (Ed.), Socioiinguistics, pp. 16-26. Mouton, The Hague. HULTZEN, L. S. 1959 Information points in intonation. Phonetica 4, 107-120. KRESS, G. (Ed.) 1976 Halliday: System and Function in Language. Oxford University Press, London. MCGREGOR, G. (forthcoming) Studies Towards the Theoretical Importance of Conversational Structure. O’CONNOR, J. D. and ARNOLD, G. F. 1961 Intonation of ColloquialEnglish. Longmans, London. PELLOWE, J. and JONES, V. 1978 On intonational variabiality in Tyneside speech. In P. Trudgill (Ed.), Sociolinguistic Patterns in British English, Edward Arnold, London. PELLOWE, J. and JONES, V. 1979 Establishing linguistic space. Language and Speech 22,97-l 16.
intonationally
variable systems in a multidimensional