ABSTRACT
Intonation involves pitch variations/fluctuations in an utterance or stretch of speech. As a result, intonational form and function do impact intelligibility when speakers from different varieties of English communicate with each other. This chapter gives an overview of the model most commonly referred to in intonational analysis as the British model of intonational analysis. The British model is known as the contour-based tradition because it relies on the identification of distinctive contours in the speech signal. The Gimson and Cruttenden and Roach have both given detailed coverage on the functions of intonation in English. The Low summarised the main findings on intonation patterns in Singapore English. Based on an analysis of the spoken corpus of Singapore English known as the Grammar of Spoken Singapore English Corpus (GSSEC). Lim notes that Singapore English has phrase-final prominence. Ouafeu reports on the analysis of intonation patterns found in read-aloud passages and conversational speech of Cameroon English speakers.
