Theory
DI views intonation as discoursal (not grammatical, not attitudinal) in function. 'The significance of intonation is related to the function of the utterance as an existentially appropriate contribution to an interactive discourse' (Brazil 1984:46). 'By making a choice in any of the intonation systems ... a speaker makes some kind of assumption about what he/she takes, for present purposes, to be the state of understanding between him/her and a hearer' (Brazil 1997:132). Speakers thus make intonation choices according to their perception of the understandings they share with their hearers: these understandings relate to their shared biographies, and to the purposes of their talk in a particular context. Although syntax and intonation do have a relationship in purpose-driven talk (Brazil, 1995), they are regarded as being separate areas of choice. Thus DI holds that there is no 'normal' relationship between tone units and clauses.
not
grammatical,
not
attitudinal'
Categories & realisations
Four systems:
prominence,
tone,
key,
termination.
The tone unit
Tone
The fall and rise-fall are 'proclaiming' tones which add the increment
of meaning 'I am telling you this' to the tone-units in which they occur.
The rise and fall-rise tones are 'referring' tones which add the increment
of meaning 'I assume that this is part of our shared experience'.
The level tone opts out of the proclaiming/referring choice, and signifies
that the speaker has a focus on the wording which he/she is compiling,
rather than on interpersonal interactivity.
Key and Termination
Speakers have the choice of placing prominent syllables low, mid, or high in relation to the previous prominence. These choices, on the onset prominence, comprise the system of key; on the tonic prominence, the system of termination. Low key adds an increment of meaning 'This tone unit has an equative relationship with what has gone before'; high key adds 'This tone unit has a denial of expectation relationship to what has preceeded', or 'This is discourse-initial'. Low termination adds an increment of meaning 'This is discourse-final'; high termination adds 'This is something I want you to give judgement on'. The example below (from Chapter 7 of Streaming Speech) shows high, mid, and low key on the word 'NO':
Notation
The notation of DI began (in the 1970s) as a type-writer friendly notation using UPPER CASE letters for prominent syllables, lower-case letters for non-prominent syllables, underlining for the tonic syllable, and lines up or down for high and low key and termination. Symbols for the tones were given in letter form, with 'p' for proclaiming (falling) tones, and 'r' for referring (rising) tones. After the advent of the word-processor, more use was made of arrows. The top line of the example below (from Chapter 7 of Streaming Speech)shows an example of contemporary practice:
The words 'that' 'way' and 'well' are in upper-case letters, showing that they are prominent, the other words are non-prominent. There is a falling (proclaiming) tone which starts on 'well' and continues over the last three words 'on the course'. The double-slash symbols denote a tone-unit boundary. Key and termination choices are mid, if they were low or high, the prominent syllables would be preceded by up or down arrows.
Transcriptions
Transcribers are trained through a process of standardisation with recordings and with other transcribers. There is a simple notation to learn: but the main task of is learning to relate the categories of DI to the particular characteristics of the recordings being transcribed. Some of these issues are mentioned in the Applications area of CDIS. If you are interested in learning to become a transcriber, contact Richard Cauldwell.