Abstract
What is intonation? Intonation is how we change and vary our pitch to communicate meaning. When we listen to people speaking, we use clues from their intonation to understand and interpret what we hear. Intonation works together with other elements of speech, such as pace, volume, pausing, stress, and emphasis, to help us express the deeper meaning behind our words. You may hear people use the term “intonation” to describe all these elements of prosody. In everyday conversations, you may also hear people refer to intonation as tone of voice, or simply tone.