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  • Hello, and welcome again to Study English, IELTS Preparation. I'm Margot Politis.

  • Today we're going to look at intonation- how we use a rising or falling tone of voice to

  • convey meaning - and we'll also have a quick look at how to use commas.

  • But first, let's watch a clip about sleep. We'll see a researcher doing some tests on

  • a subject, to see just what the benefits are of an afternoon nap.

  • Researchers at Flinders University say a short sleep in the mid afternoon could actually

  • increase a worker's productivity.

  • Each subject performed a series of tests before and after their mid afternoon sleep.

  • Some subjective tests of alertness, fatigue, vigour, and also some cognitive performance

  • tasks, some which are pencil and paper and some that are done on the computer, and also

  • an objective measure of alertness, which is how long it takes someone to fall asleep.

  • So if it takes them a long time to fall asleep, that would suggest that they're quite alert,

  • and a short time to fall asleep would mean that they're quite sleepy.

  • Do you think you were asleep?

  • Yes, hard to tell but I think so. I think I did for a bit.

  • For how long?

  • It felt like probably a couple of minutes, I reckon.

  • I want you to do exactly the same thing now. I want you to start here and want you to go

  • as quickly and as accurately as you can until I tell you to stop.

  • So in that clip we heard a researcher talking to the subject of her tests.

  • You'll notice her intonation changed a lot.

  • Intonation refers to the changes in pitch in our voice as we speak - whether our voices

  • go up, or down.

  • Intonation is very important to learn. It has many functions in a language.

  • It conveys emotion. We can tell immediately listening to someone how they feel.

  • Someone can sound happy, or sound sad.

  • Hello, how are you?

  • Hello, how are you?

  • Intonation also conveys meaning. It let's the listener know whether something is a question

  • or a statement, or it can indicate different levels of certainty or uncertainty.

  • Hello, are you well?

  • Hello, are you well?

  • Learning intonation is especially helpful for learning to ask questions, and indicating

  • what sort of answer we expect.

  • Watch part of the clip again, and listen closely to the intonation as the doctor talks to her

  • subject.

  • Do you think you were asleep?

  • Yes, hard to tell but I think so. I think I did for a bit.

  • For how long?

  • It felt like a couple of minutes, I reckon.

  • The doctor says to the subject, "Do you think you were asleep?"

  • Does this have a rising or falling tone?

  • Listen again.

  • Do you think you were asleep?

  • Do you think you were asleep?

  • Her voice goes up at the end of the sentence. We call this a rising tone.

  • The rising tone is used for yes/no questions - questions that need a yes or no answer.

  • Listen now to the second question. Does it have a rising or falling tone?

  • For how long?

  • It felt like a couple of minutes, I reckon.

  • The doctor says, "For how long?"

  • This is a question too, but it has a falling tone.

  • A falling tone is used with information questions.

  • They're questions that need information as an answer, not just a yes or no answer.

  • The man answers with a statement: A couple of minutes, I reckon. This takes a falling

  • tone.

  • In English, statements usually end in a falling tone.

  • The falling tone at the end tells the listener that the statement is finished.

  • Listen to the intonation used to give instructions.

  • I want you to start here and I want you to go as quickly and as accurately as you can

  • until I tell you to stop.

  • Did you hear the falling tone at the end?

  • She said, "until I tell you to stop".

  • This tells the listener that this is the end of the instruction.

  • So, let's look at when to use rising and falling tones again.

  • A rising tone is used at the end of yes/no questions, and a falling tone at the end of

  • information questions.

  • Falling intonation is also used with statements.

  • These are very general rules, but they can help you to work out what you, as a listener,

  • are expected to say, and can help you, as a speaker, to convey your meaning.

  • Now, let's look at one last example of intonation.

  • Listen to what happens when we have a list in a sentence. Here's a very complicated list.

  • Some subjective tests of alertness, fatigue, vigour, and also some cognitive performance

  • tasks, some which are pencil and paper and some that are done on the computer, and also

  • an objective measure of alertness, which is how long it takes someone to fall asleep.

  • So she uses a variety of intonation. She uses rising and falling tones, and a tone that's

  • neither rising nor falling - just a flat tone, for the items in the list.

  • This tells the listener that she hasn't finished her list of tests.

  • And then, for the very last item in the list, how long it takes someone to fall asleep,

  • she uses falling intonation. This is how we know the list is finished.

  • We use generally use falling intonation for the last item in a list.

  • So you can see there are some rules for intonation, but of course it varies according to the situation,

  • and our attitudes to the topic.

  • OK, so when we're talking, we use intonation, pauses and body language to convey meaning.

  • But what about when we're writing?

  • Well, we need to use punctuation.

  • Let's look at one of the most common but difficult punctuation items - the comma.

  • Commas are used to help readers understand the exact meaning of a sentence. They're like

  • pauses in speech.

  • A comma in the wrong place can give the wrong meaning to a sentence.

  • For example, look at these two sentences:

  • Stop, Jane!

  • Stop Jane.

  • In the first sentence, the comma shows where there is a pause in speech, "Stop, Jane",

  • and this tells us that the speaker wants Jane to stop.

  • In the second sentence, there is no pause and no comma - "Stop Jane."

  • With no pause, we know that the speaker is telling someone else to stop Jane.

  • Let's look at some rules about using the comma.

  • First, commas are used to separate items in a list.

  • Look at the way commas are used here

  • Some subjective tests of alertness, fatigue, vigour,

  • and also some cognitive performance tasks.

  • OK, so notice that when we write down her speech, we put commas where she uses pauses

  • and we use intonation to separate the items in a list.

  • We write alertness, fatigue, vigour. We read this as alertness fatigue vigour.

  • Adding a comma between items in a list tells us clearly how many different items there

  • are.

  • A second use of commas is to separate clauses in a sentence.

  • We use a comma to separate dependent and independent clauses, but only when the dependent clause

  • is first in the sentence.

  • This sounds complicated, but it's not really. Here's an example of a dependent clause:

  • because he was very tired

  • followed by an independent clause:

  • he went to bed.

  • Notice that we use a comma.

  • Because he was very tired, he went to bed.

  • But let's swap the clauses around:

  • He went to bed because he was very tired.

  • In sentences like this, with the independent clauses first, we don't need a comma.

  • Listen to the different way they're read out, and you can hear why:

  • Because he was very tired, he went to bed. Notice the pause.

  • He went to bed because he was very tired. There's no pause.

  • So sometimes when you're writing, it helps to think that if there's a pause, you might

  • need a comma.

  • And that's where we're going to pause today. Hope you enjoyed Study English, I'll see you

  • next time. Bye bye.

Hello, and welcome again to Study English, IELTS Preparation. I'm Margot Politis.

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B1 中級 澳洲腔

學習英語 - 第1系列,第24集:完美的午睡。 (Study English - Series 1, Episode 24: Perfect siesta)

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    大呆危 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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