phonetics, intonation, function of intonation, RP, Cockney,

1. Intonation
Intonation is used to refer to distinctive use of different patterns of
pitch that carry meaningful information.
Four type of intonation
• Fall intonation
• Rise intonation
• Fall-rise intonation
• Rise-fall intonation
Rising intonation- increase over time
falling intonation- decrease with time
Functions of intonation
• Attitudinal function- it express our feelings, attitudes, emotions. For
example; happiness, boredom, anger
• Accentual function- the placement of stress is determined by
intonation.
• Grammatical function- it is determined by intonation. The listener is
better to recognize the grammar and syntax structure. For example :
those who sold quickly, made a profit( a profit was made by those who
sold quickly) . those who sold quickly , made a profit( a profit was
quickly made by those who sold)
• Discourse function- the listener is able to recognize which information
is “new” and which already “taken”.

2. RP, Cockney, Estuary
RP- Received Pronunciation
it was popular 30-40 years ago, it is pronunciation of the British
aristocracy. It is also called Queen’s English, Oxford an BBC English.
Cockney is another accent, which is working class accent. The speakers
themselves were not Cockney speakers.
The new accent Estuary English was described by the British linguist
David Rosewarn in 1984. The name Estuary refers to area where it was
originated, river Thames, near London.
Changes in RP
• RP /t/ is replaced by glottal stop
• RP /j/ tends to dissappear
• RP syllable forming consonants are split by a vowel
• Dark /l/ in RP is often replaced by /w/
• RP /tj/ and /dj/ are replaced by / / and / /
• Initial /h/ tends to dissapear
• There is general tendency to monophtongise the diphthongs
• Word stress tends to shift to the end of the word
• Short vowels become prolonged in the word final position
• Intonation becomes prolonged and stressed.