VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES
 PHAN THỊ NGỌC ANH ENGLISH INTONATION: ERRORS MADE BY THIRD YEAR
STUDENTS AT ENGLISH DEPARTMENT,
CHU VAN AN UNIVERSITY MA Combined Programmed Thesis

Field : English Linguistics
Code : 60.22.15
Supervisor : Assoc. Prof. Dr. VÕ ĐẠI QUANG
Hanoi, 2012 iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i
ABSTRACT ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS iii
LIST OF TABLES viii
LIST OF CHARTS ix
ABBREVIATION AND SYMBOLS IN THE STUDY x
PART A. INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale of the study 1
2. Scope of the study 2
3. Aims and objectives of the study 2
3.1 Aims of the study 2
3.2 Objectives of the study 2
4. Research Questions 2
5. Significance of the study 3
6. Design of the study 3
PART B. DEVELOPMENT 5
CHAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.4.2.3.2 Intralingual Errors 33
1.5 Summary of the chapter 35
CHAPTER 2. METHODOLOGY 36
2.1 Research Setting 36
2.2 Subjects 36
2.3 Speech material 37
2.4 Instruments 38
2.4.1 The intonation tasks 39
2.4.1.1 The perception task 39
2.4.1.2 The production task 39
2.4.2 The academic results 39
2.4.3 Survey questionnaire 40
2.4.3.1 The questionnaire items adopted in the present study 40 v
2.4.3.2 Structure of the survey questionnaire 41
2.5 Data Collection and Data Analysis Procedure 41
2.6 Data Analysis 43
2.6.1 Data obtained via the intonation tasks 43
2.6.2 Data obtained via the academic results 43
2.6.3 Data obtained via the survey questionnaire 44
2.7 Summary of the chapter 44
CHAPTER 3. DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 45
3.1 Research Question 1 – Error Analysis 46
3.1.1 Research question 1.1 – Error identification and description 46
3.1.1.1 Errors of joining more than one intonation unit into one unit 48
3.1.1.1.1 Errors of joining closely grammatically connected units
(Jc). 49
3.1.1.1.2 Errors of joining short units (Js) 49

3.2.2.1 The bigger number of errors committed by the mid-ability group
compared to the higher ability group 70
3.2.2.2 The bigger number of students in mid-ability group than in high-
ability group committed different types of errors 71
3.3 Research question 3 – Attitude and Behavior Assessment 74
3.3.1 Students‟ beliefs and attitudes towards learning English intonation 74
3.3.2 Students‟ reactions to their problems 77
3.4 Summary of the findings 78
PART C. CONCLUSION 79
1. Recapitulation 79
2. Concluding remarks 80
2.1. Concluding remarks on objective 1 80
2.2. Concluding remarks on objective 2 80
2.3. Concluding remarks on objective 3 81
2.4. Concluding remarks on objective 4 81
2.5. Concluding remarks on objective 5 81
3. Recommendations 82 vii
4. Suggestions for further study 84
REFERENCES I
APPENDIX IV
APPENDIX 1. PERCEPTION TASK IV
APPENDIX 2. PRODUCTION TASK V
APPENDIX 3. KEYS TO INTONATION TASKS VI
APPENDIX 4. PHONETIC TRANSCRITION OF INTONATION TASK VII
APPENDIX 5. SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE VIII
APPENDIX 6. ACADEMIC RESULTS X
APPENDIX 7. APPROACHES TO TEACH INTONATION XI


Table 12: Types of Errors Made in Two Tasks

Table 13: The Number of Errors Committed by Members of Ability Groups

Table 14: The Number of Students Made Errors by Two Ability Groups ix
LIST OF CHARTS

Chart 01: Proportion of joining and splitting errors

Chart 02: Proportion of error types

Chart 03: Number of students making errors from the most to the least
frequent in perception task

Chart 04: Number of students making errors from the most to the least
frequent in production task

Chart 05: The number of students made different types of errors in two
groups (According to Mid ability group)



1
PART A. INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale of the study
Intonation is a helpful tool to achieve effective communication. Speech without intonation
features is no more than a machine output. Therefore, a proficiency in intonation is a
requirement for non-native learners of English. English intonation operates a trio of
systems including tonality (the choice of intonation unit), tonicity (the choice of the tonic
syllable or the nucleus) and tone (the choice of pitch movement on the nucleus). Each
subsystem itself, however, is a fairly complicated phenomenon. It is why when teaching
and learning English, both Vietnamese teachers and students pay more attention to
grammar, vocabulary, individual sounds; and pay very little attention to intonation. This
prevents learners from comprehending spoken English. Neglect of intonation in the past,
nonetheless, is now no excuse for neglect in the present.
For students at English Department, Chu Van An University, who will become translators
or interpreters of English in the near future, knowledge of English intonation is extremely
essential. Especially, those who intend to work as interpreters are obliged to work mostly
with spoken English. If they are not good at intonation, they are unable to interpret
meaning implied under what the native speakers say. Likewise, they may cause some
misunderstanding due to wrong use of intonation. From the teaching reality, I have realized
that my students encounter no few problems in speaking English intonationally. They even
find it difficult to identify correct intonation units, more difficult to determine the nucleus
among stress syllables in an intonation unit, and much more difficult to put a right pitch
movement on the nucleus. As a result, their speech is either jerky or monotonous or both.
Apart from that, I myself have a couple of difficulties with English intonation. I am aware
of the importance of English intonation. However, the amount of knowledge gained before
my post graduate course is not sufficient for me to feel confident about communicating in
English. Especially, I cannot escape from feeling that my speech is not natural.
With a hope that I can make some contributions to solving my own problems and my
students‟ difficulties in communicating in English I choose the study on “English

1. Error analysis 3
1.1 What are the common errors in dividing speech into tone units at the
perception and production stage encountered by third year majors of
English Department, Chu Van An University?
1.2 What are factors that lead to errors of English tonality?
2. Correlation investigation
2.1 What is the relation between the perceptive and productive capacity for
intonation units?
2.2 What is the correlation between the students‟ language proficiency and their
ability of speech division into intonation units?
3. Attitude and behavior assessment
3.1What are students‟ beliefs and attitudes towards English intonation learning?
3.2 What do students do to resolve their own difficulties in learning intonation?
5. Significance of the study
The study is significant for the following reasons:
(1) The study is implemented to investigate students‟ errors when dividing
utterances into minor word groups – tonality. Therefore, it is hereby expected
that the study contributes to raising students‟ awareness of perceiving and
producing intonation units.
(2) It will help teachers to predict the learners‟ difficulties in learning intonation
unit and be aware of the problems so that they will have effective methods to
deliver their lectures on the issue in a way that it minimizes the tonality errors.
(3) More importantly, it offers some possible suggestions to solve the problems
and the pedagogical implications for further applications of teaching English
intonation in general and English intonation unit in particular in the classroom.
6. Design of the study
Alongside with the References and Appendices, the thesis is structured into three main

are a few studies on intonation involving Arabic and Japanese language as follow:
Binghadeer (2008) investigated Saudi EFL learners‟ pitch range and compared it to that of
native speakers. The results revealed that non-native speakers differed significantly from
native speakers in the mean of the pitch range for utterances with falling intonation.
However, the study is the contrastive analysis of English with Arabic language, not with
Vietnamese. Moreover, pitch is just a component of intonation.
Ohata (2004) examined some of the characteristic phonological differences between
Japanese and English. Comparing segmental and supra-segmental aspects of both
languages, this study also discusses several problematic areas of pronunciation for
Japanese learners of English including intonation. Nonetheless, the problems made by
Japanese learners of English are surely not the same as those encountered by Vietnamese
ones.
The article “Teaching English intonation to EFL/ ESL Students” by Mehmet Celik,
Hacettepe University, Turkey proposed a framework of English intonation as a second or
foreign language to non-native speakers of English. It is proposed that a framework of
English intonation should include four major intonational features including rhythm units,
stress, tones, and pitch range. It also emphasizes the need to teach intonational features in
meaningful contexts with realistic language and point out the need to consider intonation
not as a luxury but a necessity for an efficient interchange in English. Although this
framework may approve to be useful and workable for practitioners in the field of ESL/
EFL, it seems to be fairly general and theoretical.
In Vietnam, it seems that the issues related to English intonation attract little attention of
authors and scholars. In one of the scare books of intonation in English and Vietnamese
entitled “English intonation by the Vietnamese” (Ngữ điệu tiếng Anh ở người Việt) by Dr.
Nguyen Huy Ky (2006), a number of clear descriptive demonstrations on intonation made
by the Vietnamese are shown in specific situations. The author points out series of errors 6
relating to English intonation contours, subjective and objective factors leading to the


7
goes up and down in pitch when we are speaking”. From the words of these two authors, it
can be seen that intonation is closely associated with speech and a feature of the spoken
language. Despite being represented by two different terms which are “the rise and the fall
of the pitch” in Tench‟s definition and “the way the voice goes up and down in pitch” in
Kelly‟s definition, pitch variation is a key element to identify intonation. The terms “pitch
variation” is also found with intonation in other definitions from other authors. For
example, Peter Roach (2001: 33) considers that “intonation is the melody of speech, and is
to be analyzed in terms of variations in pitch” or O‟ Connor (1973: 1) states that “when we
talk about English intonation we mean the pitch patterns of spoken English, the speech
tunes or melodies , the musical features of English”.
In the present study, the researcher adopts the definition from the Longman Dictionary of
Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (1992: 190) that is
“When speaking, people generally raise and lower the pitch of their voice, forming pitch
patterns. They also give some syllables in their utterances a greater degree of loudness and change
their speech rhythm. These phenomena are called intonation. Intonation does not happen at
random but has definite patterns which can be analyzed according to their structure and functions.
Intonation is used to carry information over and above which is expressed by the words in the
sentence”.
From the definition, it can be seen that pitch variations, stress, and speech rhythm seem to
be closely related to intonation. That is to say, they are three key components forming
three sysytem of English intonation nanely tone, tonicity, and tonallity. Additionnally, the
definition reveals that English iontonation has its own structure and functions, and one
function is to carry information. In the following sections, systems, structure, and functions
of English intonation are clearly discussed.
1.2.2 Systems of intonation
Opposite to the idea that intonation is so subjective, in the view of Tench (1991:84)
“Intonation is admittedly personal, but it is also conventional”. The statement is clearly
demonstrated by the fact that intonation is systematic, and the systems can be described.

Consider the following, in which the contrastive nucleus is capitalized and underlined:
(1): SHE played the piano yesterday. (It was her, not him or anyone else.)
(2): She PLAYED the piano yesterday. (She only played not harmed.)
(3): She played the PIANO yesterday. (It was the piano not violin.)
(4): She played the piano YESTERDAY. (It was yesterday not today.) 9
1.2.2.3 Tone
Of all the aspects that intonation covers, tone plays a vital role. English is considered as
intonation language, that is, the language that does not use tone for a change in lexical
meaning but for intonation meanings. In English, tones can only be identified on a small
number of particular prominent syllables. Therefore, English tone has been defined as “the
contrastive pitch movement on the tonic syllables” (Tench, 1996: 73) or “the main
movements of pitch within a tone unit” (Kelly, 2000: 89).
Each linguist has their own classifications of English tones. Crystal (1969) recognizes four
basic tones (fall, rise, rise-fall, and fall-rise). Brazil (1997) and Roach (1983) identify five
tones (fall, rise, rise-fall, fall-rise, and level) whereas O'Connor and Arnold (1973)
distinguish seven tones (high-fall, low-fall, high-rise, low-rise, fail-rise, rise-fall, and mid-
level). In the words of Tench (1996) it appears that three primary tones can be efficiently
taught to non-native speakers of English, namely, falling, rising, and falling-rising tone.
Celik (2001) adds one more tone, the high rise tone.
1.2.3 Structure of intonation
I have an idea to begin this section with a very familiar saying (1) “A ′dog is a ′man‟s ′best
′friend.” It is most likely to be said with the word “friend” being most prominent and the
pitch of the voice falling to a low level on that word. With these features, the word “friend”
is said to be tonic syllable or nucleus. The part from “a” up to “best” is considered the “pre
tonic segment” which can be divided into the “pre-head” with the unstressed word “a” and
the “head” which begins with the first stressed syllable “dog” up to the word right before
the nucleus “best”.

′Dogs
are ′men‟s ′best ′friends
From the table, it is acknowledged that each intonation unit has one and only one
obligatory tonic syllable. The other parts of the unit can appear no not. The structure of an
intonation unit can be generalized in the following diagram:

Structure of intonation here is shown through structure of each intonation unit in an
utterance. According to Paul Tench (1996:12), structure of an individual intonation unit
consists of pre-tonic segment and tonic or nucleus and tail. Among those, the tonic is
obligatory and the most prominent word; the head, pre-head and tail are optional
Tonic syllable is the most prominent syllable in an intonation unit. Each intonation unit has
one and only one tonic syllable. This means that the tonic syllable is an obligatory
component since it carries the tone in the intonation unit.
The chart also reveals that pre-tonic segment is composed of two smaller parts namely pre-
head and head. The head extends from the first stressed syllable up to but not including the
tonic syllable. If there is no stressed syllable before the tonic syllable, there cannot be a
head.
The pre-head is comprised of all the unstressed syllables in tone-unit preceding the first
stressed syllable
Any syllables between the tonic syllable and the end of the tone unit are called the tail.
TONE UNIT
(TU)
Pre-head
(PH)
Head
(H)
Tonic syllable
(TS)
Tail
(T)

12
(A waitress from the hotel was sent to Joan.)
 // They sent Joan / a waitress from the hotel //
(A waitress from the hotel whose name is Joan was sent to somewhere.)
 // They sent Joan / a waitress / from the hotel // (Joan, a waitress, is now is sent away from the hotel.)
1.2.4.2 Communicative function
Whereas the informational function of intonation presents the management of information,
the communicative function is to present the speaker‟s purpose in saying something. It
addresses the question “Why is it being said?”. This function is also called by another
name “discourse function” which refers to the intended effect that the speaker wishes to
produce on the hearers. The hearers are able to acknowledge whether the speakers are
telling them something, asking them, ordering them, pleading with them or just plainly
greeting them or thanking them. Therefore, it is said to be able to convey the listeners what
kind of response is expected. It is principally the tone system that performs this role.
Generally speaking, a falling tone in an intonation unit denotes „speaker-dominance‟: the
speaker knows, tells, orders, demands. On the other hand, a rising tone denotes „speaker-
deference‟: the speaker asks, requests, or coaxes.
Take the utterance “//You like it, // don‟t you? //” as an example. The tag “don‟t you?”

something unexpected; a narrow falling tone denotes mildness, something expected. For
example: When you say “Thank you!” starts high and end low will show real gratitude, but
when starts low and ends high shows casual acknowledgement of something not very
important. In brief, Intonation enables us to express emotions and attitudes as we speak,
and this adds a special kind of meaning to spoken language.
1.2.4.4 Grammatical function
The fourth function relates intonation to the syntax of clauses. Intonation has a
grammatical role in disambiguating parallel wordings of different syntactic structure. This
function addresses the question “Which is it being said?”. One typical example includes
the distinction between defining and non-defining relative clauses, the distinction between
transitive and intransitive verbs, and the case of the reflexive pronoun. Specifically,
intonation unit contributes to indicate whether a relative clause is defining or non-defining,
a verb is transitive or intransitive, and tonicity system helps to differentiate a pronoun as a
reflexives or emphatic one. Here are some typical examples extracted and adapted from the
book “The intonation systems of English” by Paul Tench (1996:21):
(1) // My brother who lives in Nairobi.// (This is defining relative clause, it means that
I have more than one brother, who may live in different places)
(2) // My brother// who lives in Nairobi.// (This is non-defining relative clause, it adds
more information to my only one brother)
Tench (1996) also gives two contrastive instances to illustrate the effect of tonicity on
identification of reflexive in (5) and emphatic pronoun in (6) 14
(5) He ASKED himself. (He asked nobody else but him) (6) He ASKED himSELF. (He himself did the asking)
detects an error in intonation, he or she can check first with tonality then the tonicity and
tone so as not to cause byproduct errors in tonicity and tone.
1.3 English Tonality
1.3.1 Nature of tonality
Paul Tench (1996:31) considers tonality as the system in intonation that divides spoken
discourse into its separate individual intonation units, each of which represents one unit of
information. Spoken discourse may be only one word, even only one syllable, a sentence
or the whole text. It may consist of only one message, one or more than one piece of
information which is conveyed by an intonation unit. Thus, if a spoken discourse consists
of only one syllable, one word, or represents one message, there is no problem. Otherwise,
learners of English will face with difficulties in identifying intonation units which correctly
represent the speaker‟s management of the organization of information. The term
“intonation unit” can be called by different names by different authors. In the present study
the terms like “tone unit” (according to Roach), “tone group” (in the word of Halliday),
“word group” (stated by Tench), “sense group” (called by O‟ Connor), and “pause
group” (in the view of Pennington) are used to refer intonation unit.
1.3.2 Identification of tonality
Generally, when people communicate in speech, they must organize and manage their
information into discrete pieces of information which are worded into clauses and
pronounced in intonation units. Tonality in such cases is said to be neutral; otherwise,
tonality is said to be marked.
1.3.2.1 Neutral tonality
Halliday (quoted in Tench 1996:31) draws attention to the observation that very often
intonation units coincide with clauses. In fact, when a message is given, it is conveyed as a
single unit of intonation, but it has to be worded, and this is where grammar comes in. The
clause is an obvious unit of grammar to handle a typical piece of information since the
subject represents the theme (what the message is about), and the predicate represents the
rheme (what the message actually is).