Christoph Gutknecht

Intonation and Language Learning: The Necessity for an Integrative Approach

1. The discrepancy between the goals and reality of applied linguistics as an integrative discipline can be recognized most clearly in the field of intonation, prosody, and para- and extra-linguistic phenomena, since the area covered by these phenomena intrudes into many disciplines (e.g., medicine, psychology, physics, musicology, phonetics, linguistics and pedagogy). It is generally agreed that these phenomena have to be regarded in their manifold interrelations. On the other hand there seems to be very little agreement among authors in their attempts to delimit and define these phenomena. The result is simply complete terminological confusion.