Terminology used in teaching spoken English.

[sarat_106]

I was reading an article on the difference between written and spoken English. I have come across the following sentence - "Intonation contours, stress patterns, junctures (transition and boundary features) and tone of voice are absent in Written English." I am unable to understand the meaning of three highlighted terms in the above sentence. Please explain me clearly with examples.

[Tdol]

The intonation contours are the rising and falling pitch, like the rising pitch when asking a question. In speech we can stress different words or syllables to change the meaning, while in print we have bold and italic, but not much else. Take 'I am going'; if we stress the second word, it could mean that we are showing our determination to leave, but if we stress the first, it could be because no one else is leaving, etc. We use things like 'anyway' to signal a change in the direction of a conversation; when the conversation moves into a different area, or takes a different mood, we normally signal it.

[sarat_106]

Thank you Tdol for your useful post