Effects Of Intonation On Uncoveringthe Underlying Information Of English Listening Material

During the studying of English and teaching, the author found that it is common thatquite a lot of Chinese students of English have large vocabulary and profound knowledge ofgrammar, yet have comparative low ability in communication, especially the listening andspeaking skills. This is largely because English is an intonational language, and intonationplays an incredibly important part in the communication of speaker’s emotion, attitude,implied meaning and intention that underlies the surface of vocabulary and grammar.For this reason, the author in doing this research wants to arouse the attention ofteachers and students to the intonation of English in the first place. Furthermore, the authorhopes to uncover the secret of how English intonation functions in oral discourse inexpressing the underlying meaning and information, which words cannot express alone, soas to1) enrich the theories of oral discourse analysis;2) shed some light on teaching andlearning the actual skills of listening and speaking of English.Therefore, this paper takes the listening comprehension tests of CET4as examples inexamining and analyzing the effects of English intonation on oral discourse, since that CET 4is a national examination for the students of English, and the questions are well designed.Besides, the listening tests of CET4have such demand that students can perceive andcomprehend the meaning and information expressed by intonation.Based on Pirrehumbert and Hirschberg’s componential interpretation model ofintonation, the author firstly analyzes the interpretation of the intonation components atdifferent discourse levels in the CET4listening tests:1) H*pitch accent makes certainitems in the utterance salient and set them apart from other items, and thereby highlights thekey information the speaker means to convey;2) phrase accents and boundary tonesindicate the relationship between the key information at different discourse levels, and thusshow the direction of where to trace the related information.Then, with the help of Halliday’s theories of discourse analysis and informationstructure, the author discusses the interaction of English intonation and other discoursephenomena. By such analysis, the paper explains that intonation can have effects inuncovering the underlying meaning or intention of the speakers by reinforcing or violatingthese discourse phenomena.And based on the discussion and analysis, the author presents a demonstrativeinterpretation of the listening material of one of the CET4listening test questions to showthe process of how the knowledge of intonation is applied in the solving the listeningcomprehension questions. Therefore, it can shed some light in improving the listening andspeaking skills, and more over the communication abilities. This study emphasizes theinnovation in theoretical study and the practical application of the theories.