Intonation is an integral part of communication for all speakers. But can sign languages have intonation? A new study shows that signers use their faces to create intonational ‘melodies’ just as ...

Could it be that cellist Yo-Yo Ma owes his perfect musical pitch to his Chinese parents? While we may never know the definitive answer, new research from the University of California, San Diego has ...

A spoken language is more than just words and sounds. Speakers use changes in pitch and rhythm, known as prosody, to provide emphasis, show emotion, and otherwise add meaning to what they say. But a ...

Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Sinatra and Hendrix – these and many other of the world's most famous musicians have had "perfect" or "absolute" pitch. The ability, defined as recognizing the pitch of a musical ...

Tonal languages are different from non-tonal languages because tonal languages are dependent on the emphasis and pronunciation, because how a word is said will affect its meaning. It is quite ...

We have intensively discussed speech sounds in this class. The aim has been to improve on how we pronounce words. Today, we are building on what I hope has been achieved by looking at the concept of ...

As noted last week, intonation is the rise and fall of pitch in the voice — when speaking. There is the need to master the concept and its manifestations to improve on our spoken English. Among other ...