Attitudinal correlate of final rise-fall intonation in Japanese

Abrupt rise and subsequent fall intonation is common at the end of intonation units in Japanese, but its attitudinal correlate has not been fully elucidated yet. This intonation appears in the literature of the 1960’s as politicians’ way of speech, and nowadays not only politicians but many speakers including older generations often use it. However, this intonation is stigmatized as childish, and many people devalue it as an unintelligent way of speaking by young people. Where does this great gap between reality and image of this intonation come from? This presentation addresses this problem by focusing on natural conversation of Japanese daily life. The conclusions are as follows: (i) Rise-fall intonation often appears when the speaker talks about high-level knowledge, whereas it disappears when the speaker talks about their personal experience. (ii) Rise-fall intonation at the end of an intonation conveys the speaker’s being so occupied with speaking that intonation unit. The childish image comes from the speaker’s unawareness of their overall speech because of being occupied with local process. [Work supported by the Ministry of Education, Science, Sport, and Culture, Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A), 16202006, and by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, SCOPE 041307003.]