Differences Between Pitch, Intonation, and Inflection
Written by: Anna Pasternak / Voice Therapy / February 10, 2021 / 10 minutes read
In clinic, as speech therapists, we are often working with client’s on their voice, with pitch being one of the most common areas of focus. In clinic we often use the word intonation, however some people get confused with this term. Many people ask, “What is intonation? Is it the same as pitch?” The answer is yes and no.
Pitch refers to the highness and lowness of tone or voice, and intonation is how pitch varies in spoken language. These terms are often used interchangeably as they can both be used for music and voice, and both terms discuss the highness and lowness of voice.
The difference between music and voice is that in language, a change in intonation means the variation of pitch in spoken language such as the difference between questions and statements. Where as, for questions, we raise our intonation at the end of a sentence. While, in order to produce a statement, we drop our pitch at the end of the sentence. In music pitch refers more to how accurate the instruments or musician is. Pitch refers more to high and low tones. A high tone is a high frequency sound such as an ‘s’ and low pitch a low frequency sounds such as ‘n’. In regards to intonation we refer more to a rise in inflection and a fall in inflection, which happens consistently when we are speaking. So although ‘pitch’ is a more common term used, intonation is more appropriate when referring to the pitch change in language.
Intonation in language is used all the time such as the above mentioned questions/statements, we also use intonation in language to communicate emotion as when our voices will go up in intonation when we are excited and go down in intonation when we are sad or confused. We also use a rise in intonation when stressing words within sentences that we want to stand out. Overall the rise and fall in our voices allows for our speech to be more interesting and dynamic as opposed to monotone which can be difficult to read the emotion the person is feeling and make it more difficult to listen.
If you can imagine a professor giving a lecture with no change in inflection, it would be very hard to get though a three hour class. In university I actually transferred out of a class, as my professor was so monotone that nothing was sinking in. I ended up transferring into a class where the professor was able to use his intonation so well that no matter what he said appeared interesting.
Pitch refers to the highness and lowness of tone or voice, and intonation is how pitch varies in spoken language.
So how about Inflection? What does it mean?
Inflection is another term that is often also mixed into terminology when someone is talking about pitch. Though it can mean a change in pitch or tone of voice, the definition for inflection goes as follows:
“A change in the form of a word that reflects a change in grammatical function. Such as an inflection for numbers or tense.”
It can also refer to the turning away from something that is going straight, as in in optometry and in math, when they talk about the change in curvature. When it comes to language, inflection refers more to single words or syllables, such as a change in grammar to a single word when we make it a plural.
Often we to work with clients on inflection, though when it comes to voice, the more appropriate term to use when discussing the rising and falling of tone during speech should be intonation.
Hasa. (2020, March 22). Difference Between Pitch and Intonation. Retrieved January 14, 2021, from https://pediaa.com/difference-between-pitch-and-intonation/
Intonation vs Inflection - What's the difference? (2021, January 13). Retrieved January 14, 2021, from https://wikidiff.com/intonation/inflection
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