Reports a preliminary investigation into the pitch correlates of politeness formulae produced by English and Japanese informants of both sexes. Because of differences in sociosemiotic function of pitch, Japanese females' pitch is more differentiated from the Japanese male pitch than is that of the English female from the English male. (Author/PJM)

Outlines some problems common to actors and teachers in generating appropriately expressive speaking voices. Basic skills discussed include loudness without tension, clarity of articulation, use of intonation, and manipulation of rate. (JMF)

Indicates that native and nonnative speakers alike can make use of intonation if they explicitly listen for it, although prosodic features are generally ignored when other cues (semantic and pragmatic) are available. (Author/RL)

Reviews aspects of Halliday's Systemic-Functional Grammar, emphasizing language functions, modality vs modulation, process types, transitivity, information distribution, and cohesion. Implications for language teaching are discussed. (AM)

A study of the relationship between intonation and syntax must consider communication as a whole, rather than isolated sentences. This study examines the role of the speakers in communication, bilateral and unilateral communication, and some pedagogical implications of this study. (Text is in French.) (AM)

In foreign language classes, intonation is taught using as a basis for comparison the intonation of the standard dialect of the native language. It is argued here that the learner's native dialect should be used instead. Examples are given of transfer from Swabian dialect to English. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

Points out that, although Japanese students of English may be taught proper sound and word stress, sentence stress and intonation are usually neglected. A system of teaching these features is outlined. (CHK)

Considers the fact that prosody is a grammatical (phonological) structure that must be parsed. The article describes prosodic categories marked by intonational pattern for English and Japanese, concentrates on "pitch accent" and tonally marked "phrases," and discusses potential ambiguities in parsing these categories. (60…

Discusses two auditory comprehension studies that investigated the role of focus, as conveyed by a pitch accent, in the comprehension of relative clauses preceded by a complex noun phrase. Findings include focus attracts modifiers, and pitch accents for new phrases differ acoustically from pitch accents for contrastive phrases. (46 references)…

Discusses why English pronunciation and intonation have been neglected in Hong Kong English-as-a-Second-Language lessons, why it is essential to teach English phonetic symbols, and what remedial measures should be taken to implement this neglected component of teaching ESL. (Author/VWL)

Ten infants aged 8-12 months were studied to determine whether they would spontaneously imitate the average fundamental frequency or fundamental frequency contour of their speaking partners. Acoustic analyses failed to reveal any tendency by the infants to adjust vocal pitch, amplitude, or duration in home or laboratory settings. (Author/JDD)

Explored the power of intonation of speech addressed to adults and preverbal infants to convey meaningful information to 80 adult listeners. Listeners used intonation to identify speaker's intent with greater accuracy in infant-directed speech than adult-directed speech. (RJC)

Presents a general test of the intonational comprehension of English-as-a-Foreign-Language, in which students are required to match a sentence, spoken with particular intonation patterns, to one of three alternative interpretations. The test can also help provide insights into particulars and universals of intonation. (CB)

Quantitative measures were made of the fundamental frequency patterns of Japanese mother's speech addressed to infants aged 0;3-0;4. Frequency ranges were found to change with repeated attempts to get the infant's attention but were not otherwise altered substantially from normal adult patterns when an initial attempt was made to gain the infant's…

The production and perception of syllable stress by 15 children (ages 10-13) with severe or profound hearing impairments were compared to 15 controls. Children with hearing loss had higher fundamental frequency, duration of syllables were longer across stressed and unstressed syllables, and they were less successful in conveying stress…