Peter Viney's Blog

Doesn’t anyone teach intonation anymore?

After a lifetime teaching English as a Foreign Language, I know that several nationalities … including Scandinavians, Poles, Russians and nearby areas do not use the “polite” intonation patterns which we use in English in their own languages. I’ve discussed it with teachers and students from those areas and they have told me they feel silly trying to copy our English patterns of obsequiousness. It’s nothing to do with actually being polite or being rude. It’s simply intonation and I always taught it. I always made a major issue about intonation patterns.

Basically, if you use the right intonation patterns, but the wrong grammar, English speakers will respond to you in a positive way.

If you use the correct grammar but flat or curt intonation they will respond to you negatively.

It’s something we did extensively in our Handshake course and we added that if you are smiling and yet make errors, English speakers won’t care. If you’re glowering and speaking curtly with no errors, English speakers will respond badly. Studies were done in schools where students had to supply written homework, and consistently teachers marked kids who smiled and nodded and used receptive listening skills, more highly than “students” (they were all actors)  who sat frowning with their arms folded, or looked away when the teacher spoke. We are human. We like people who display interest in what we are saying.

So I really know this issue well. Yet nevertheless I’ve been made angry twice this month by delivery drivers.  We have a long drive with bushes both sides, and we have little  kids playing. I’m always angered by delivery trucks taking it at speed. One roared up the drive … I was outside and about to remonstrate, when the driver who had a Russian or Baltic states accent said, “You must cut your bushes now! They will scratch my van!” it was perfect English, but said as a command to an underling. For the first time in years, I realized why my American English editors hated teaching MUST and preferred SHOULD. That would have helped in this example. However I WISH YOU WOULD or I’D LIKE YOU TO … would have been better. But the main problem was the commanding tone, which is why I replied, ‘Yes, we keep them long to stop people driving up here much too fast. Like you just did.” OK, and his “Fuck you” should have had him sacked but why bother?

Anyway, if the tone and intonation had been right, it would not have caused an angry reaction.

Then today it happened with DPD. Unmarked white van.  The driver was probably Polish by the accent, and presumably a recent arrival. I have several good Polish friends who have been here for a few years, and they’ve all acquired polite intonation in English. He had a parcel for my son and said “You must show me ID.”  I thought it odd, but showed him my bus bass which has my photo on it. He said, “No, you must show me date of birth.” I said I had never been asked that by a delivery driver and I consider it none of his business … also with credit card or other information, it’s an “identity” question which my bank might ask over a transaction, I did not see why I should give it at the door to a stranger. It’s bloody rude anyway.

He just turned, marched back to the van and threw the parcel in. “You will not get the parcel. You must show date of birth.”

I asked why he wanted it, but he just repeated ‘I will take this parcel back. You will not have it.’ He had an unpleasant aggressive manner. (I’ll add that an emphatic YOU WILL / WILL NOT seems to be taught to students at home, when a lighter contracted YOU’LL / YOU WON’T sounds so much better).

Fortunately my son (aged 38) arrived home. He had ordered a bottle of unusual whisky, and so presumably the identity was to prove the recipient was over 18. Had this been explained, I could have pointed out that you cannot get a bus pass (which has photo ID) until you are 65. I could also have pointed out that I do not look under 18 even in my wildest dreams. My son produced his own drivers licence.

Mind you, this guy was a surly nasty piece of work regardless. He probably would have preferred to be curt and rude even if he had known, and I’ll add that explaining WHY you want information must work in any language. Karen adds that he is certainly overworked and seriously underpaid and had a bad day, but actually he will have irritated most of the people he’s dealt with, so that’s why he will have had a bad day.

Just after I posted this, I got another delivery. By car. A woman in a yellow hi-vis coat (good, you know she’s delivering something, unlike the man in street clothes earlier). Spanish accent, middle-aged, ‘Good evening. Lovely day today. Yes? Good.  Sign here …” You immediately feel the transaction was pleasant. A greeting. A comment, and above all a friendly voice with good intonation. (We sold a lot of books in Spain when she was student age!) … Karen adds that invariably its a skill women acquire way faster than men. I’ll add that my generation were taught to use greetings and comments in their own language too.

So what’s happening text book authors? Do you teach polite intonation? If not, why not? As I said at the beginning, it’s far more important than exact choice of words or tense.