Increments and Tone 151
the speaker recalling methods of representation that were mentioned
previously in the discourse (1978: 42). The function of retrospective
summary appears directed towards meeting hearers’ needs. Speakers
label the content of the tone unit as summarizing information previously
introduced into the discourse and simultaneously signal ambivalence as
to its information status.
Tench (1997: 16) argues persuasively that some instances of level tone
signal that the information presented is information which a hearer is
presumed to know. The assessment of information as ‘routine’ or ‘unques-
tionably self-evident’ appears sensitive to hearers’ present informational
needs and there seems no reason not to include such speech within the
domain of used language.
Seventy-four increments were located in the corpus which contained level
tone tone units. These tone units were coded as projecting that the reader
was engaged or disengaged with the hearer. Table 6.6 summarizes the
details.
The classifi cation of the increments as engaged or not was based on four
factors: the co-occurrence of the level tone with conventions and exclamations;
the co-presence of a tone unit internal hesitation pause in the surrounding
tone units; the repetition of lexical items indicating that the reader was
stumbling over the words; and the tonal composition of the increment
which contained the level tone tone unit. The term tonal composition is
taken from Tench (1996) but is used here (after Pickering 2001: 238), in a
slightly different way to identify speech as direct discourse where the speaker
is sensitive to the hearer’s informational needs or oblique discourse where
the speaker is not. Direct discourse is identifi ed by the predominance of
end-rising and falling tones while oblique discourse is identifi ed by the
predominance of level tones followed by a falling tone which signals
completion. Level tone tone units which meet any of the fi rst three criteria
or level tone units within an oblique discourse tonal composition are
classifi ed as disengaged. All other level tone tone units were classifi ed as
Table 6.6 Increments containing level tone tone units
Not engaged Engaged
Self-evident Retrospective summary Not classifi ed TotalText 1 1 13 1 1 15
Text 2 28 15 4 11 30
Total 29 28 5 12 45