Interpersonal Function of English Intonation in News Reading

This paper studies the interpersonal function of English intonation by looking into a newsreader’s engagement with the task of news reading.We examine the degree of the newsreader’s engagement with the reading task by observing how he presents two different kinds of listing through the use of intonation.We find that different intonation patterns are used for these two different kinds of listing.This shows that the newsreader performs as an engaged communicator of information instead of a mere medium between the script and the audience.Thus, from the perspective of the newsreader’s engagement with the reading task, we can say that English intonation plays an interpersonal role in news reading.