What Exactly Is Staircase Intonation?

In saying your words, imagine that they come out as if they were bounding lightly down a flight

of stairs. Every so often, one jumps up to another level, and then starts down again. Americans

tend to stretch out their sounds longer than you may think is natural. So to lengthen your vowel

sounds, put them on two stairsteps instead of just one.

We're here.

We

///////// 're

///////// ///////// he

///////// ///////// ///////// re.

///////// ///////// ///////// /////////

The sound of an American speaking a foreign language is very distinctive, because we double

sounds that should be single. For example, in Japanese or Spanish, the word no is, to our ear,

clipped or abbreviated.

No

/////////

Clipped

No

///////// ou

///////// /////////

Standard American

When you have a word ending in an unvoiced consonant—one that you "whisper" (t, k, s, x, f,

sh)—you will notice that the preceding vowel is said quite quickly, and on a single stairstep.

When a word ends in a vowel or a voiced consonant—one that you "say" (b, d, g, z, v, zh, j), the

preceding vowel is said more slowly, and on a double stairstep.

seat

////////////

Unvoiced

see

///////// eed

///////// /////////

Voiced

There are two main consequences of not doubling the second category of words: Either your

listener will hear the wrong word, or even worse, you will always sound upset.

Consider that the words curt, short, terse, abrupt, and clipped all literally mean short. When applied

to a person or to language, they take on the meaning of upset or rude. For example, in the

expressions "His curt reply ...," "Her terse response...'' or "He was very short with me" all indicate a

less than sunny situation.

Three Ways to Make Intonation

About this time, you're coming to the point where you may be wondering, what exactly are the

mechanics of intonation? What changes when you go to the top of the staircase or when you put

stress on a word? There are three ways to stress a word.

+ The first way is to just get louder or raise the volume. This is not a very sophisticated way of doing

it, but it will definitely command attention.

+ The second way is to streeeeetch the word out or lengthen the word that you want to draw

attention to (which sounds very insinuating).

+ The third way, which is the most refined, is to change pitch. Although pausing just before

changing the pitch is effective, you don't want to do it every time, because then it becomes an

obvious technique. However, it will make your audience stop and listen because they think you're

going to say something interesting.