Phonetics and Phonology III: Final

Which are the main elements in describing the English intonation system?

The main elements used for the description of the English intonation system are the tone unit, prominence and tone. 

A tone unit is a chunk of speech said in one breath that might consist of one single syllable or of a set of syllables. It is the unit used for the analysis the intonation of speech. Peter Roach breaks down the structure of the tone unit into head, pre-head, and tail. The head is the part of the tone unit that extends from the first stressed syllable up to (but not including) the tonic syllable (if there's no stressed syllable, there's no head). The pre-head is composed of all the unstressed syllables preceding the first stressed syllable. Finally, any syllable between the tonic syllable and the end of the tone unit are called the tail.

Prominence is, according to Brazil, a property associated with a word by virtue of its function as a constituent of a tone unit. If we say "Tom IS the best student in the class" we're making the word "is" prominent. Whether it's a lexical word or a function word, making a word prominent is a meaningful choice. We make a syllable prominent by the combined or exclusive use of length, loudness, or pitch in saying a syllable.

Tone has to do with pitch movement. Generally, a fall tends to communicate a sense of completeness, whereas rise of fall-rise signals that there's more to follow. The tone occurs in the tonic syllable in a tone unit, and is carried over along the tail of said unit if there's one.

Which are the main functions of intonation in the English language?

The attitudinal function of intonation enables us to convey different feelings and attitudes. For example, we can say a sentence in different ways, and depending on which intonation we choose, we might convey 'anger,' 'happiness,' 'boredom,' 'gratefulness' and so on. In general terms, a falling tone indicates finality; a rise a question or "more to follow"; a fall-rise uncertainty, doubt or a request; a rise-fall surprise. However, attitudes aren't conveyed by tones alone, as there are other variables that have as much an important role in communication as tones do. Peter Roach takes this variables into consideration and group them into three types: sequential, prosodic and paralinguistic. In a nutshell, 'sequential' concerns the inner tone unit structure, pauses, and tone-unit boundaries; 'prosodic' relates components such as width of pitch range, key, loudness, speed and voice quality; finally, 'paralinguistic' has to do with facial expression, gesture and body movements.

The accentual function of intonation helps us express nuances of meaning by making a syllable more prominent, or by placing the tonic stress on a particular syllable in order to make the listener focus on that particular syllable in the tone-unit. By means of the accentual function of intonation we can distinguish a normal placement of a tonic syllable from a constrastive one (>> I don't want to know where he's traveling FROM, I want to know where he's travelling TO). Similarly, we can distinguish a non-emphatic tonic syllable placement from an emphatic one (>> it was very BORing / it was VERY boring).

The grammatical function of intonation helps to clarify the information that is being conveyed according to the syntactic features of an utterance. This intonation function can solve the ambiguity of sentences just by using different tones, while in writing it'd be necessary to rephrase said sentences to get to the same result. In sentences with complex structure, tone-unit boundaries are often found at phrase and clause boundaries, and it's quite important to make a distinguishable realization of a restrictive or of an non-restrictive relative clause. Furthermore, questions that from the strictly grammatical perspective look like statements, can be turned into questions with a the proper use of intonation.

The discourse function of intonation enables us to focus the listener's attention on the part of the message that is considered to be the most important in the tone unit by placing the stress in one particular syllable. This is a syllable in the word with the highest information content, which in other terms is 'new information' to the conversation as opposed to 'given information' or 'shared knowledge.' A falling tone indicates new information, while a rising (including fall-rise) indicates given information.

Discourse Analysis

1. Sean begins the conversation with a falling tone because what he is saying is new information to the listener, and then the next tone unit is said with a rising tone as it is part of the two individuals’ common ground.

2. Then Steve, the other participant of the conversation, asks a rising-tone question with the intention of checking whether the concert was good or not.

3. Sean’s reply is a definitive, one-syllable tone unit “yes”, which is a complete answer in itself, but then he goes on and speaks another falling tone unit that expresses finality and indicates it’s the other speaker’s turn to carry on with the conversation.

4. Judging by Sean’s words, Steve assumes Sean told Ana about the trip to Dubai, and uses a falling tone question to make sure whether his assumption is correct or not.

5. Sean responds by categorically denying he did that with a sequence of three falling tone units.

6. Steve picks up on Sean’s assertion and says “yeah” with a rising tone indicating he is not finished; then “should” is treated as the most important word in the tone unit given that it bears the tonicity. The rising tone extends over the tail. Here, a “but” clause could have been introduced but Sean interrupts him.

7. Again, the falling-tone “yes” conveys definitiveness; the following rise-fall indicates a strong suggestion (which wasn’t done); next, Sean informs Steve he can still do it using a falling tone, and that is followed up with a standard rising-tone wh- question whose purpose is to find out about the date of the flight.

8. The answer is new information, and therefore it is said with a fall.

9. Sean’s question here is aimed at making sure about Steve’s enthusiasm about his trip, and is said with a rise.

10. Steve replies with a sequence of three falling tone units, and then uses the adverb “otherwise” which is a tone unit in itself. This tone unit is said with a rise to indicate that it is connected with what has previously been said. The next tone unit is a proclaiming one, and then the following one is said with a rise-falling tone that adds emphasis. The last tone unit in Steve’s turn is new to the listener and so it’s a fall

11. This is a “checking” question and as such it is said with a rising tone.

12. Steve responds emphatically with a rising “yes.” Then he goes on to enlist a series of things, and each one of the tone units that each thing is, is said with a rising tone. The list is not closed with a falling tone.

13. There’s another wh- question that makes use of the rising tone. It is, again, intended to find out information.

14. The two tone-unit response Steve does is new information, so both units are falls.

15. Sean expresses surprise with a rise-fall.

16. Steve says “I hope so” with a fall-rise in what is a response with reservation. Then he makes two short and quick falling tone units.

17. Sean gives Steve a command with a fall. And then a short question “OK” to make sure he got the command.

18. Steve closes up the conversation with a fall-rise indicating he understands what he has to do.

Definition of intonation by Peter Roach

Peter Roach holds that even though no definition of intonation is completely satisfactory, the pitch of the voice must be recognized as one of the most important aspects of intonation. He describes pitch in terms of 'high' and 'low' but says that's an arbitrary way to refer to them. In order for pitch to be considered as part of intonation, it has to be linguistically significant, and for this to happen pitch has to produce contrast with other pitch variations, it has to be under the speaker's control, and it has to be perceptible.

Tonality, tonicity and tone
The word tonality refers to the chunks of speech -called intonation phrases or tone units- that an utterance is broken into. 

Tonicity refers to the highlighting of the a syllable in the content words of the tone units. The last stressed syllable of the tone unit -called tonic syllable or nucleus- is most more often than not the most important word out of all the other stressed words.. 

Tone refers to the pitch movement that occurs in the word that has the tonic syllable and in the tail if there's one. Tone is broadly divided into falls and highs.

Leading and trailing tones

If a dependent phrase or clause precedes the main element, it's called leading. If it's after the main element, it's called trailing. In either case, the unmarked tone for a dependent element is a non-fall (a fall-rise or a rise)

With a leading dependent element, this non-fall is most usually a fall-rise, and it indicates that there's more to come:

>> 'after <fall-rise>lunch // we could 'call on <fall>Mary.

Alternatively, a leading dependent element may have a rise:

>> 'after <rise>lunch // we could 'call on <fall>Mary. 

With a trailing dependent element, the most usual tone is a rise, and it's used to indicate that it belongs with what went before:

I'm rather annoyed // <rise>frankly. 

We're going to Spain // in <rise>August.

Set I

Suprasegmental Phonology

A good way to start with Suprasegmental Phonology is knowing in what way it differs from segmental phonology. In a nutshell, segmental phonology deals with vowels and consonants while Suprasegmental Phonology involves breaking up speech into tone units. A tone unit is a chunk of speech said in a single breath. Inside each tone unit there's a set of different sounds that occur in differing ways according to how the speaker uses rhythm, intonation and stress.

English prosody

Prosody is the combined use of pitch, loudness and speed that make up the rhythm of speech. Pauses do also have to do with prosody, as they help break up the flow of speech. Prosody reflects emotions, differences in the form of an utterance (question, statement or command), attitudes, etc. that are not communicated through grammar or lexical devices. 

Prosody features

Three are the features used for linguistic purposes. These are those of pitch, length and loudness.

Statements

Definite fall

We can say a statement with any tone, but the fall is the default one. When we use a fall tone we say a statement with confidence, and unreservedly. It also signals that what we say is potentially complete as well as finality.

I'm <fall>ready.

Implicational fall-rise 

The most typical meaning of a fall-rise tone is that the speaker implies something.

I know her <fall-rise>face. (but I can't remember her name)

The speaker can go on and make the implication explicit, or leave it unsaid. The implicational fall-rise often signals that a clause beginning with "but..." is going to come.

What's she like as a colleague? - Well, she <up-down>works very hard. (implication: but... she has no much talent.)

Leaving a reservation unexpressed might lead the other speaker to ask "what do you mean / what are you trying to say?"

The implicational fall-rise makes it possible to be tactful and polite.

Are you free next week? - Well, on <fall-rise>MONday I am. (but later I might not be)

More about the implicational fall-rise

1. Used for correcting a mistake in a polite way

She's coming on Thursday. - On <fall-rise>Friday. (in writing we signal this with a "?")

2. Used for making a partial statement.

What was the food like? - Well, the <fall-rise>FISH was good.

3. Used for partial corrections.

I hear you passed all your exams - <fall-rise>MOST of them.

4. Used for subtle implications

What a lovely voice! - Yes, she has a lovely <fall-rise>VOICE. (but she can't <fall-rise>act)

5. Used in negative sentences to modify (in contrast with a falling tone) the scope of meaning a word has.

She didn't do it because she was <fall-rise>tired. (she did it, but for some other reason.)
She didn't <fall-rise>DO it // because she was <fall>tired. (she didn't do it. Here's why)

Final: Contrastive Grammar

1. The verb to cast (to throw something forcefully in a specified direction) appearing in the ST opening sentence "Who cast the first fateful tomato…" is rendered as:

TT1: lanzó

TT2: lanzó

TT3: tiro

The lexical unit lanzar is much more likely to have an equivalent effect in the target reader than tirar, because it denotes more strength or violence applied to the action than the broader and vaguer term tirar, which can also be to get rid of, to ditch or to dump. Besides lanzó, another popular equivalent in other translations was arrojó.   

2. Determiner that in “that first fateful tomato”:

TT1: ese

TT2: aquel

TT3: el

The determiner that is a category-one type correspondence because it matches up well with ese. Both these units express in this case temporal distance. However, in Spanish we can express further temporal distance with aquel. It is not a mistake per se because both words convey almost the same meaning (I’m being a bit picky here), but since that first fateful tomato was cast over 70 years ago, I believe aquel does a better job painting a picture of how that situation developed or how long ago that situation took place. As far as the TT3 translation el, it represents a word-class shift (from adjective to article), and it fails to convey the semantic (temporal distance) that aquel or even ese does.

3. “first fateful tomato”

TT1: fatídico primer tomate

TT2: primigenio y profético tomate

TT3: primer tomate catastrófico

The TT1 translation is a faithful translation because it stays within the constraints of the ST and expresses the exact same meaning intended by the author. The TT2 translation is a free translation because it focuses on the content rather than on the form.

As far as the TT3 is concerned, the syntactic arrangement of words, or in more technical terms the immediate constituents, is misleading to say the least. The mistake in this translation can be explained citing the structuralist or taxonimic grammar model.

               

TT1: [fatídico] [[primer] [tomate]]

TT3: [[primer] [tomate]] [catastrofico]

The error in TT3 translation is that it implies that that tomato was only the first of a series of fateful tomatoes. Much to my surprise, this was a mistake that more than 50% of professional translators committed. Below are some examples:

·         primer venturoso tomate.

·         primer tomate fatídico.

·         primer tomate preñado de destino.

·         primer tomate crucial.

·         primer trascendental tomate.

4. “a carnival that got out of hand”

TT1: un carnaval del cual se perdió el control.

TT2: un festejo que se volvió incontrolable.

TT3: un carnaval incontrolable.

Krzeszowski speaks about the universal semantic inputs and the language specific surface structure outputs his Contrastive Generative Grammar is based on. In other words, he breaks down into five stages the linguistic process that operates between the universal semantic inputs, and the language specific outputs. This is, of course, a model designed to compare languages, but –if we think about it– it makes a lot of sense for analyzing translations as well.

A few things can be said about the translations of this phrase in the TT1 and TT2, but all things considered they both get the job done as far as transferring the meaning from the source into the target text. That is, they both convey –mind you, in different ways– the idea that the carnival went from being peaceful, to being a mess. But once again, the TT3 translation has some issues that keeps it from reaching that equivalent effect status. It makes it out to be like the carnival was always out of control, and that is far from what the original text says.

So back to Krzeszowski’s five stages, the TT3 translation only goes past the three first stages: 1) conceptual input (It’s like a framework with different slots: agent, patient, time, space); 2) framing the semantics into categories (like unit, structure, etc.); 3) the syntactic level (minor lexicalizations). However, the 4th stage concerns inserting dictionary words  (major lexicalizations), and TT3 lacks that. It basically lack words like “se volvió,”  “se convirtió,” and what not.

5. “a giant paper maché puppet parade”

TT1: un desfile gigante de marionetas de papel maché.

TT2: un desfile de gigantescos muñecos de papel maché.

TT3: desfile de marionetas de papel maché.

This leads me to the question: Is the parade giant? Or is it the maché puppets that actually are? From an immediate constituents analysis point of view, it appear as if the parade was giant.

However, the TT2 translation as well as almost all of the other translations from the contest totally missed this, changed the syntax, and made it look in the Spanish version as if the puppets were giant.  Below are some examples:

·         “un desfile de títeres gigantescos hechos en papel maché”

·         “un desfile de enormes muñecos fabricados con papel maché”

·         “un desfile de muñecos enormes de papel maché”

·         “un desfile de figuras de gran tamaño confeccionadas con papel maché”

·         “un desfile de marionetas gigantes de papel maché”

·         “un desfile de monigotes gigantes de papel maché”

Having said that, the puppets in La Tomatina festival are indeed gigantic, so it might be that the error is actually in the source text.

6. “They happened upon a vegetable cart nearby and started hurling ripe tomatoes.”

TT1: Al toparse en las cercanías con la presencia de una carreta de vegetales, empezaron a revolear tomates maduros.

TT2: Se toparon con una carreta de vegetales que estaba por allí cerca y comenzaron a arrojar tomates maduros.

TT3: Se encontraron cerca de un carrito de vegetales y empezaron a tirar tomates maduros.

Halliday suggests four fundamental categories of grammar: unit, structure, class and system. He says that these categories are universal, and that they're sufficient as a basis for the description of any language. In the category of unit languages are broken down -from largest to smallest- into ranks, which are sentence, clause, phrase, word and morpheme. The larger ranks consist of the smaller ranks, and this implies a scale that is called rank scale. 

With that into consideration, Halliday holds that in traditional linguistics any single sentence will always correspond on a one-to-one basis with any single sentence in another language –So was it really necessary for me to modify the ST sentence so much? In the translation of the source text sentence, this is a principle that the TT2 and TT3 translators did apply, as you can see in the diagram:

Both these translations correspond on a 1:1 basis the down to the sentence and clause rank with the ST. TT1, however, disrupts the syntactic features of the original. 

While TT2 and TT3 are faithful translations because they stay within the grammatical constraints of the ST, TT1 attempts to put more emphasis on the naturalness than on the syntactic features, regardless of whether or not it successfully does so.

7. “Innocent onlookers”

TT1: Espectadores inocentes.

TT2: Los inocentes espectadores.

TT3: Los inocentes espectadores.

So I’m going to bring up the ignorance hypothesis developed by Newmark and Reibel. It distinguishes an ignorance-without-interference –which is about structures that are not a problem for learners because they will hardly ever use them– and an interference-without-ignorance, where learners stumble upon the same errors time and time again even when they know that a specific grammar structure is not correct –the can’t help it but to use them. This ignorance hypothesis is generally a theory used to describe the mistakes one makes in the L2 -however, it can also be used to explain a mistake done in the L1 due to background interference form the L2.

That's why I made a mistake here. In my translation I omitted the determining article, just like it is done in English. This error is considered to be interference without ignorance because no native speaker can be said to be ignorant of the central structures of their own language –I do know it’s misguided to omit the article in Spanish, but I did it nonetheless. I paid so much attention to the source text that I neglected the target text–.

It’s also worth noting that this is an intralingual error and not an interlingual one. Part of the job CA has in relation to language pedagogy is to predict mistakes –however, there’s only so much CA can predict that it’s not possible to cover all the variables. An Intralingual mistake is something CA does not predict.

Quick mention:                                                  

Also, I wanted to quickly go over this sentence: "repay the tomato vendors" in which I translated "repay" as "pagarles." A doubt I had was about whether I should to put "pagar a los vendedores" or "pagerles a los vendedores." Most of the other translations used "pagar," but that sounded a bit odd to me, so I researched and found out "pagarles" with the object "les" attached to the verb is optional in some countries, so to say just "pagar" is fine. TT2 translation said "compensar," which I like it as a translation, and the TT3 translation is "reembolsar," which I think it's okay as a translation, but my only hang-up is that "reembolsar" is a transitive verb, so if you say "reembolsar a los vendedores" it kind makes you think they're gonna put the vendors into a bag or something like that.

Then, with clause "locals who defied the law" I didn't make the same mistake and I put the determining article "los lugareños que desafiariaron la ley." So did TT2 with the determiner "algunos" in "algunos veciones que no acataron la ley..." but I don't like that one because it conveys the idea that they were a few, but we don't really know about that.

Also, here, I made a shameful mistake. “Mock” is translated in both the TT2 and  the TT3 as “simulacro.” However, because I got overconfident I thought I didn’t need the dictionary here. I knew “mock” is “burla” in Spanish, and to make it fit in the context I translated it as “parodia sobre el funeral del tomate.” However, little did I know that mock also means “simulacro”. So I made one of the main mistakes translators have to keep themselves away from: assuming you know something, and not double-checking. This would be something like ignorance with interference LOL

8. "(it) decided to roll with the punches "

TT1: optó por adaptarse al cambio.

TT2: decidió amoldarse a la situación.

TT3: decidió ser flexible.

In this case we have the idiom roll with the punches, which literally it’s used in boxing, but figuratively can be used in any walk of life as well. It means “to adjust to difficult events as they happen.” All the three translations do a good job capturing the meaning of the original.

As it is the case with most idiomatic expressions, they are a category three-type correspondence. A category three-type correspondence is when a language A has a feature that B either lacks or can only be rendered in terms of B’s, which operates according to different principles. This expression has no direct translation in Spanish –We can’t find a translation that conveys the same boxing imaginary–, and therefore an equivalent has to be found. Whatever it is the equivalent chosen by the translator, it will be rendered as a phrase that operates according to different principles.  

9. “the tomatoes take the center stage”

TT1: los tomates toman el protagonismo.

TT2: los tomates son los protagonistas.

TT3: los tomates toman el centro del escenario.

The verb take as used in the ST sentence is translated as tomar in TT1 and TT3. This word is relatively easy to learn, so that is why it is safe to say it’s a category-one-type correspondence. At the same time, it is worth pointing out that even though there is certain correspondence between take and tomar, the first has a much higher functional load in English than its equivalent does in Spanish.

The same thing happens with the adjective epic in epic paella. We don’t use the word epic anywhere near as much as they use it in English. An epic paella was translated as una paella épica in TT3, but in the TT1 it was translated as una estupenda paella and in the TT2 as una colosal paella. And another case of the same principle is the sentence modifier today. We could use hoy as a sentence modifier (though hoy en día would be more common), but we don’t use as often as we would use actualmente o en la actualidad.

I wanted to make a quick mention about the translation of unpalatable tomatoes. I translated it as tomates de mal sabor and in TT3 it was translated as tomates incomibles. However, I believe the translation in TT2 which is tomates no aptos para el consume is fundamentally wrong. A lot of people got confused over the difference between no comestible and incomible.

10. “with the firing of a water cannon, the main event begins”

TT1: con el estallido de un cañón de agua, se da comienzo al evento principal.

TT2: con el disparo de un cañón de agua, comienza el evento principal.

TT3: con el tiro de un cañón de agua, el evento principal empieza.

Going back to Halliday's suggestion that any single sentence will always correspond on a one-to-one basis with any single sentence in another language, there's in this case a total one-to-one correspondence on the sentence rank between the ST sentence and the three TT sentences.

Holliday doesn't specify there has to be this same correspondence on the level of the phrase unit, but the three translations begin with the same syntactic configuration: a sentence modifier adverbial.

The most notable difference between these translations is than following the adverbial, TT1 makes use of the passive voice with “se” while the other two use the active voice. Therefore, it can be said that there’s not one-to-one correspondence on the phrase rank between the ST sentence and the TT1 sentence.

Because of this syntactic difference, TT1 is a semantic translation –it attempts to sound more natural to the TT reader–, and TT1 and TT2 are faithful translations.

As an aside note, I have seen that among the 20 best translations from the contest, only two of them used the passive voice while the other 18 used the active voice. This might be an indicator that it’s better to use the active voice in this kind of construction. Moreover, the main distinct feature between TT2 and TT3 is that in one the verb precedes the subject, and in the other the subject precedes the verb. This marks whether the translator places more emphasis on the action or on the subject. Again, out of the 20 best translations, 15 of them chose to put the verb first, and the other 5 did it the other way around.

verb + subject	subject + verb
·         empieza entonces el acontecimiento principal ·         comienza el evento principal ·         marca el comienzo del evento principal ·         empieza la actividad principal ·         inicia el acto principal	·         el evento principal comienza ·         El evento principal se inicia ·         el evento principal da inicio ·         El espectáculo principal empieza luego ·         el evento principal inicia