1. Introduction
     It can be observed that the same sentence is uttered with different intonation. Brazil (1984) also argues that no two readers, given the same printed text to read aloud, can usually be expected to make identical intonation choices. Halliday suggests (cited in Brown and Yule 1983) that intonational realization depends upon the two categorization of information as ‘given’ or ‘new’. It is also argued that pitch movement choice depends on speaker’s moment-by-moment decision with regard to the context (Brazil 1994; 1997: Cauldwell and Allan 1997). Thus, the regulations or tendencies of pitch movement choices should be found in the context of the situation or of the story. In order to interpret the context, the author introduced stylistic idea of modality (Toolan 1996). Also, as the fixed sample of utterances, the author chooses literary texts and their re-recorded soundtrack CDs. This study seeks to compare the same sentences in the two different literary texts, clarify the validity of text interpretation from the modal points of view in the framework of Brazil’s theory and identify factors of pitch movement choices.

 

2.1. Material
    Two versions of “Sense and Sensibility”, originally written by Jane Austen, were chosen as the sample of this study: one was the original version; the other was a re-told version as a graded reader. The authentic original text was from the series of Oxford World’s Classics, published by Oxford University Press in 2004. The re-recorded CDs used for this study were produced by Naxos Audiobooks Ltd., an unabridged version read by Juliet Stevenson in 2005. The re-told version was produced by Oxford University Press as level 5 of Oxford Bookworms Library series. The story was re-told by Clare West in 2000. The attached CDs were used as the sample material.

 

    One common scene was focused from the two different versions of the story, which was originally contained in Volume II, Chapter VII. In the scene, the same sentences in direct speech were found, such as ‘Engagement!’, ‘There has been no engagement.’ and ‘But he told you that he loved you.’ (see Appendix A and B). The scene was transcribed according to the transcription devised by Brazil (1994). Evaluative nouns, verbs and adjectives in the expressions from the Elinor’s utterance to soothe her sister Marianne to the end of the concerned direct speech part ‘Engagement!’ were interpreted and categorized as to whether each word has positive (＋) meaning or connotation or negative (－) one, according to the modal points of view argued by Toolan (1996).

 

    As shown in Table 1 below, before the exclamation ‘Engagement!’ by Marianne in the focused scene of the original text, there were 13 nouns with evaluative connotation uttered by Elinor. Of the thirteen nouns, there were five which had positive connotation, whereas the other eight nouns were interpreted as negative. The re-told version had four nouns spoken by Elinor. Elinor’s utterances contained one positive meaning and three words with negative connotation.

Original version		Re-told version
Elinor	Evaluation	Elinor	Evaluation
comforts	＋
friends	＋
loss	－
leaves	－
opening	＋
consolation	－
discovery	－	discovery	－
character	－	character	－
engagement	＋	engagement	＋
months and months	－
end	－	end	－
confidence	＋
blow	－

4. Discussion
    It appears that these negative expressions in the original text version help to establish the context by showing what the protagonist, Elinor, unilaterally thinks about the current situation in the story, and evoke the emotion of her younger sister, Marianne more strongly than those of the same scene in the graded reader version. Elinor tries to be objective about the situation by using passive voice clauses, but the words which are used in these clauses are evaluative and subjective. Moreover, Elinor uses fall-rise tones in some of the tone units, which imply that she thinks that what she utters to Marianne are already shared with her sister. After all, in response to Elinor’s prejudiced opinions, the actress in the original text uses a rising tone as Marianne’s voice, i.e. the speaker-dominant tone, in the exclaiming sentence ‘Engagement!’. This seems to be a signal from Marianne to Elinor as “Stop it!”. On the other hand, a fall-rise tone is used in the same sentence of the re-told version, which sounds more weakly than the original version, confirming the information shared between the two sisters like “Am I right to understand that you said there has been an engagement between me and Willoughby?”. It is likely that each actress in the two audio recordings used the different pitch movements according to the difference of intensity or degree of modality which was expressed and interpreted in each text. It is also observed that each of the abovementioned pitch choices leads the similar pitch movements in the following tone units. It seems that this series of pitch was selected effectively in order to describe Marianne’s misery, and to express and play the sympathetic but still slightly sceptical part of Elinor.

 

References
Brazil, D. (1984) The Intonation of Sentences Read Aloud, in D. Gibbon and H.
       Richter (eds.), Intonation, Accent and Rhythm: Studies in Discourse Phonology.
       Berlin: de Gruyter.

Brazil, D. (1994) Pronunciation for Advanced Learners of English. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

Brazil, D. (1997) The Communicative Value of Intonation in English. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

Brown, G and G. Yule (1983) Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cauldwell, R. and Allan, M. (1997) Phonology. Birmingham: The University of Birmingham.

Gibbon, D. and H. Richter (eds.) (1984) Intonation, Accent and Rhythm: Studies in Discourse Phonology. Berlin: de Gruyter.

Toolan, M. (1996) Language in Literature: An Introduction to Stylistics. London: Hodder Education, Hachette.

 

Sample Texts and Sound Tracks
Austen, J. (2000) Sense and Sensibility. Oxford Bookworms Library, level 5, re-told by Clare West. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Austen, J. (2000) Sense and Sensibility. Oxford Bookworms Library CDs, level 5, re-told by Clare West. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Austen, J. (2004) Sense and Sensibility. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Austen, J. (2005) Sense and Sensibility. An unabridged version CDs read by Juliet Stevenson. London: Naxos Audiobooks Ltd.

 

Appendix A: Transcript of the sample scene from the original text

    // ↘ you MUST NOT talk so, marianne. //

 

 (from Oxford World’s Classics, P.138-139; Nexus Audiobooks, CD#5, Track#16. Transcription by the author.)

 
Appendix B: Transcript of the sample scene from the re-told text

    // ↘ CALM yourself, // ↗ dear mariANNE. //

 

(from Oxford Bookworms Library Level 5, P.55; CD#2, Track#2. Transcription by the author.)

 

Note: This article is based on the presentation given at the 15th Annual Conference of the English Phonetic Society of Japan at Kwansei Gakuin University in Hyogo, Japan, on 26th June, 2010.