This exercise is meant to develop your ability to hear the intonation and reproduce it in proper speech situations.

a) listen to the Joke " Weather Forecasts”, sentence by sentence. Write it down. Mark the stresses and tunes. Practise the text

b) listen carefully to the narration of the joke. Observe the peculiarities in intonation-group division, pitch, stress and tempo. Note the use of temporizers. Reproduce the model narration you have listened to.

22. Read the jokes silently to make sure you understand each sentence. Find the sentence expressing the essence of each joke. Split up each sentence into intonation groups if necessary. Mark the stresses and tunes. Underline the communicative centre and the nuclear word of each intonation group. It is not expected that each student win intone the text in the same way. The teacher win help you to correct your variant. Practise reading the jokes several times:

The cup was handed over into the youth's hands and there went cries of " Speech! Speech! "

Meanwhile the lad was able to collect his thoughts and, of course, to catch his breath. Then he stepped up on a bench. There came an abrupt and eager hush! " Gentlemen, " he said, " I have won the cup by the use of my legs. I trust I may never lose the use of my legs by the use of this cup."

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— You've been watching me for three hours. Why don't you try fishing yourself?

— I ain't got the patience.

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" Bob, " said Bill, as he caught up with Bob on the way back to camp, " are all the rest of the boys out of the woods yet? "

" Yes, " said Bob.

" All six of them? "

" Yes, all six of them."

" And they're all safe? "

" Yes, " said Bob, " they're all safe."

" Then, " said Bill, his chest swelling, " I've shot a deer."

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The man on the bridge addressed the fisherman. " Any luck? " he asked.

" Any luck! " was the answer. " Why, I got forty pike out of here yesterday."

" Do you know who I am? " " No, " said the fisherman.

" I'm the chief magistrate here and all this estate is mine."

" And do you know who I am? " asked the fisherman quickly.

" No."

" I'm the biggest liar in Virginia."

SECTION SEVEN Intonation pattern XII
I. (LOW PRE-HEAD +) HIGH RISE (+TAIL) II. (LOW PRE-HEAD +) (HIGH HEAD+) HIGH RISE (+ TAIL) [83]