156 A Grammar of Spoken English Discourse
project disengagement from the context. It may project that information
is part of a routine list or is so self evident that it does not need to be
accommodated within the assumed state of speaker/hearer convergence.
Speakers who project that their information neither represents a telling
nor presumes a pre-existing convergence can engage in an act of commun-
ication which should be classifi ed as used language. Recognition that
speakers may employ level tone to help satisfy their communicative needs
extends the descriptive power of Brazil’s grammar.
6.3 Conclusion
This chapter has shown that the grammar can be made more transparent
by recognizing that Brazil’s original grammar underreported the commun-
icative signifi cance of end-rising tone. In increment-fi nal position two
distinct types of increment-fi nal rise were identifi ed. The fi rst was dubbed
an interpersonal rise because it coincides with elements whose production
does not lead to the achievement of target state. An interpersonal rise
functions as a conversation management device to ensure hearer participa-
tion by seeking to elicit a hearer response – verbal or otherwise. When an
increment fi nal rise was attached to a tone unit which contained elements
required for the achievement of target state, it signalled that the speaker
deferred to the hearer. The speaker labelled the information contained
within the increment as inferable. The new target state was projected to
be information which hearers could have worked out for themselves had
suffi cient time and opportunity been available to do so. By deferring speak-
ers underlined the social convergence which they projected as existing
between themselves and their hearers.
An increment fi nal fall-rise similarly signals that the speaker defers to the
hearer but it also has the potential to add the extra communicative value of
implicating that something has been left unsaid which hearers using their
contextual knowledge are projected to be able to infer. Finally examples
from the corpus were presented which supported the proposal that some
instances of level tone are used language and should accordingly be coded
within the grammar. Such instances of level tone label information as so self
evident that speakers do not need to accommodate them within the assumed
state of speaker/hearer convergence.