Conversational discourse and the rise tone in Ghanaian English.

In English language discourse, the rise tone is seen as a marked tone, used primarily to show dominance, to remind, to show continuity, and to exert pressure on a participant to speak (Brazil 1997). However, its function in Ghanaian English discourse is not known and so it is difficult to determine how speakers of this variety utilize this particular tone. This study sets out to investigate the functions of the rise tone in Ghanaian English conversations in order to understand how speakers of this English variety use it. Using Brazil’s (1985, 1997) discourse intonation model as the framework, 13 hours 20 minutes of recorded conversation from 200 university students were analyzed using both auditory and acoustic means. Results from the analyses suggest that the rise tone, while being used to project continuity and to remind, is also used in place of the fall-rise tone to project given or old information, showing a difference between Ghanaians and inner circle speakers. The paper concludes that speakers of Ghanaian English choose the rise tone to achieve their communicative goals without trying to exert dominance or control in conversations.