The importance of tones in communication cannot be over-emphasised. You could be passing out the right information of distorting it completely due to the right or wrong use of tone.
Just as your verbal comunication carries a tone, your written communication could also have a tone but our focus today is on verbal communication. It is important to know that all alnaguages are unique and that you shouldn’t super-impose the rules of another language on the other.
What then is tone?
When we refer to tone in linguistics, it refers to the variation in the pitch of the voice while speaking.
It is the musical or vocal sound with reference to its pitch, quality, and strength.
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How important is tone to language?
In tonal languages, the importance of tone cannot be over-emaphasized because it carries the information, thoughts and meaning of the speaker. Therefore, the tone that is being used in a language plays an essential role in communication and understanding the language.
What is a tonal language?
A tonal language is a language which uses tones of sounds and/or sentences to define meaning.
For a language to be considered tonal, it’s meaning has to be affected by the tone. Tonal languages are ones where tone and pronunciation work together to communicate meaning. A tonal language is defined as a language where different words with different tonal inflections will convey different meanings.
As an expert in media, it is important to take note of the tones of your audience’s language, so that your message is not misunderstood. The meaning of a word in your language might differ from that of your listeners, so it is important that you make your research on how tones are applied on the words you would be using, so that your message is passed, as intended.
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