Pitch variations in English emphatic speech

• Tone


  A feature of intonation realized mainly by differences in the pitch of the voice, such as pitch level (high, medium, low) and pitch range (normal, wide, narrow)
• Forms of pitch change

  • Fall
  • Rise
• Falling tone


  Expresses finality, completeness, or confidence
• Rising tone


  Expresses interest, politeness, surprise, doubt, or incompleteness
• High Fall


  • Emphatic variation of the falling tone
  • May express various strong feelings ranging from admiration and delight to disgust and horror
  • Used in informal situations to show excitement, friendliness, or strong feelings like delight or disgust
  • Starts very high and drops down, but not as low as the normal falling tone
• High Fall


  • "What a sur↘PRISE!"
• High Rise


  • Used to express strong surprise or disbelief, especially in echo questions
  • Starts high and ends even higher
  • May even go beyond the upper boundary of the normal speaking range
  • May also indicate astonishment, indignation, and anger
• High Rise


  • "↗What? You lost my ↗money?"
• Low Fall


  • Starts much lower than the normal falling tone
  • Is often spoken softly
  • Can express disappointment, sadness, sympathy, sincerity, fear, or threat
• Low Fall


  • "Oh no, that's ↘terrible."
• Fall-Rise


  • Emphatic compound tone
  • Combination of the Low Fall or the High Fall with the Low Rise
  • Emphasizes one idea (falling) and adds another(rising), often implying something unsaid
  • Used in corrections, contradictions, warnings, and to make statements or commands sound more friendly or pleading
• Fall-Rise


  • "Goodnight, Betty. – ↘Good ↗night, Mrs. Sandford."
• Rise-Fall


  • Also an emphatic compound tone
  • The voice first rises from a fairly low to a high pitch, and then quickly falls to a very low pitch
  • Denotes that the speaker is deeply impressed (favourably or unfavourably)
  • Used in statements and questions which sound impressed, challenging, disclaiming responsibility, imperatives pronounced this way sound hostile and disclaiming responsibility
• Rise-Fall


  • Did you like it? – I simply ↗↘hated it.