A large study of 800 adults shows that pragmatic language skills—the ability to understand sarcasm, indirect requests, tone, ...

Intonation is an integral part of communication for all speakers. But can sign languages have intonation? A new study shows that signers use their faces to create intonational ‘melodies’ just as ...

This paper identifies modern Yiddish intonation patterns for three different semantic structures and contends that they derive from modern (Ashkenazic) talmudic chant. An examination of the ...

Have you ever noticed that a natural conversation flows like a dance—pauses, emphases, and turns arriving just in time? A new study has discovered that this isn't just intuition; there is a biological ...

Dogs have the ability to distinguish vocabulary words and the intonation of human speech through brain regions similar to those that humans use, a new study reports. Dogs have the ability to ...

Adults learning another language often tend to continue using the intonation of their native language. This causes them to make mistakes in the new language: incorrect intonation can change the ...

Intonation or the pitch pattern of your voice is important in spoken English because it conveys meaning in many ways. In this episode and the accompanying study notes we will learn about intonation, ...

Tonal languages are different from non-tonal languages because tonal languages are dependent on the emphasis and pronunciation, because how a word is said will affect its meaning. It is quite ...

Raúl Sánchez and Dan Bullock are linguistics and communications specialists and NYU professors. They say improving vocalics, aka nonverbal aspects of speech, is key for effective communication. Vocal ...