Abstract: Intonation plays a great role in people’s oral communication, the changes of intonation can show people’s happiness, angry, surprise and other emotions. Speech is the body of language, and the tone is the soul (Roger Kingdon，1958). Intonation has four functions, these functions are the expressive function, the attitudinal function, the grammatical function and the accentual function. The realization of these four functions of intonation is expressed by means of the changes of intonation, mainly represents in changes of rising and falling tone and accent, divide of intonation group and speaker’s voice changes of the speaker. The expressive function of intonation expresses in the rise and fall of tone, the attitudinal function expresses in tone and changes of accent, the grammatical function expresses in the location where the speaker pauses and stress, and the accentual function is reflected on the sentence rhythm feeling and metrical sense. This thesis first simply explains the four functions of intonation and then gives a further explanation of the effect of English intonation in specific situation with the classic conversations in the American TV drama The Big Bang Theory.

Key words: four functions of intonation; intonation in The Big Bang Theory; expressive intonation

CONTENTS

Abstract

中文摘要

1. Introduction1

2. Related theory of English intonation2

2.1 Expressive function of English intonation

2.1.1 Falling tone

2.1.2 Rising tone

2.1.3 Tortuous tone

2.2 Attitudinal function of English intonation

2.3 Grammatical function of English intonation

2.4 Accentual function of English intonation

3. The case analysis of functions of English intonation in The Big Bang Theory4

3.1 case analysis of expressive function of English intonation

3.2 case analysis of attitudinal function of English intonation

3.3 case analysis of grammatical function of English intonation

3.4 case analysis of accentual function of English intonation

4. Conclusion6

Bibliography7

Acknowledgements.8